Jesse Schuhlein

Marty: Welcome again to the True You Podcast. We are very excited today to have a new guest. His name is Jesse Schuhlein and I'm here as always with my partner in this production, Bill Tierney, who's an IFS coach and a compassionate results coach. And my name's Martin Kettelhut. And. executive coach mostly working with leaders in the style of my book Leadership as Relation. Welcome everybody.

Jesse: you. It's great to be here. Thanks, Marty.

Marty: Why don't we start off by me just reading a very quick little biographical piece about Jesse and then we can get into, we got some great topics to discuss today. So Jesse, he's a former engineering executive who helped grow BER technologies from a three person startup to 170 person industry leader. No small feat. In his mid forties, he was searching for something more. Through psychedelics and meditation, looking for deeper answers about consciousness in the universe, that journey unexpectedly led into therapy, personal growth and healing, and ultimately two internal family systems. Today, Jesse coaches, people using IFS blending mindfulness and real world leadership experience to help them move from chasing success to living in alignment. Welcome, Jesse.

Jesse: Thank you, Marty.

Bill: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for joining us.

Jesse: My pleasure.

Bill: for our listeners, I just would like you to know that Jesse is a volunteer in the parts work practice free practice sessions that we. He offer four times a month. We, being my co leader, Allison Dyer and I, and Jesse and I met when he reached out to me for some coaching around how to use IFS as a coach after he'd completed. Where did you have your IFS training?

Jesse: It was I-F-S-C-A. Yeah, the Stepping

Bill: Stepping Stones. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse: yeah.

Bill: And which is one of the qualifiers for being able to be a practice assistant volunteer with the parch work practice. Jesse's gonna be doing the present presentation. This episode will won't be released until after the parts work practice conference, but there's another one gonna happen in January of 2026. Jesse will be one of the presenters in this one that's coming up on September 20th, and I hope that he'll return and be a presenter, but in January as well. Jesse, welcome to the show.

Jesse: Thank you, bill. Nice to be here.

Bill: We've got an interesting mix and confluence of influences here between the three of us. And you bring a unique angle, I believe, to the conversation around the true you, you are, you work with engineers, you are an engineer. You start, you did a startup, and then actually, do I understand that you sold your company? Is that accurate?

Jesse: no, it's still going. I just. Step down from leadership role. My leadership role and I work just very part-time, like maybe 10 hours a week or so.

Bill: Would you be willing to share with us the history of that? How did you start up a business that you that was so successful and were able to step down from and I've got a lot of questions around that. Let's just start with that.

Jesse: Yeah a lot of luck. I had a couple engineering jobs and I played ultimate Frisbee with my friend Rob, who's the president, CEO, who's still there, and we were on the same team, and he was like, oh. Yeah, do you want to come and be our marketing person? This company we're getting going. And, so I said I don't know anything about marketing, but I'm interested in it. And so I joined and there were three of us in his living room. And we all had part-time jobs. We all had jobs, other places and we had very few sales, like one customer I think when I started and. Maybe a sale every week or two or month. And we grew organically. We, slowly got more customers, developed more products, and got more sales. And eventually we were able to quit our day jobs. And, then as we grew, we were able to hire more people. We had more demand, and we were still in a house. And, and then this was a rented house with a bunch of students and then we moved to Rob, moved to a house of his own and our whole company moved in there until we had maybe 13, 15 people or close to 20. And then eventually we moved. Yeah, we outgrew that and moved into an industrial space and had several moves since. And yeah, that's the history. I mean there's a lot more that happened in between there and now, but from the really hard part where I was like, I don't know if this is really gonna work. And lots of doubts and yeah. Are we to a place where we were finally oh, this is actually gonna happen and it's turning into a successful thing.

Marty: What do you attribute the success to?

Jesse: Yeah. Good question. One one is, and listening to customers, so fi, listening to what people's needs are, just responding just simple. Yeah. Just simply when customers ask for certain products or features that we respond and and listen to that input and then. Another thing is I feel like any direction you go down, there's a lot of a period of doubt and maybe not even sure if you're on the right path. And that's what I found at that time. And then, but I think one thing that's key is sticking to some path, for some amount of time. Because I find myself being pulled in lots of directions with different ideas. And so I need help sticking to the one path and trying it for sticking at it for a certain amount of time until you see if it actually works. That's in the early days. but I think one part of it that I'm really passionate about is one, at one point we reached a point where we. Real, we all realized, oh, this is actually successful now and we've made it and it's something valuable. And we all realized that the most important thing to us wa all of us was creating a great place to work. And so that became the main focus. And yeah, we just put a lot into like, how can it be a great place to work where people show up and they're inspired and they look forward to coming to work. For the most part. And so that once we, once that became our main focus it wasn't about the money, but coincidentally focusing on that thing ended up giving us even more success and like a more solid foundation so we could just, it's this really robust system of people and systems that kind of makes it grow on its own.

Marty: Coincidentally, maybe that's what you meant, but I'm curious, do you think that there is quasi causal connection between building a company that's a great place to be at and making lots of money?

Jesse: Yeah I'd say at one point, I, my, my thinking was, oh, maybe. There's a connection there and, but it doesn't matter. We'll we'll just try. That's our focus. Making a great place to work. even choosing a location where we were, that's convenient for people, for transit and stuff. And and then weather. Whether it helps us financially or not, that's less important. But now looking back, I would say that is. Key and you can have a more successful company with that focus. Yeah. Focusing on people

Bill: So what kinds of much more successful, I think in my belief. kinds of things did you do? You mentioned one making, choosing a location that was near transit. What else? What other kinds of adjustments did you make to make it a great place to work?

Jesse: I guess de defining our culture. And making sure we know what our values are. And so when we hire people, they can see if those values align with their own. And some of those values are a lot of flexibility. One thing that's different and unique is everyone and the whole company gets paid by the hour and they can work whatever hours they want as many or few hours as they want within reason because people have work to get done. Coworkers that depend on them. And so the flexibility, and we have a lot of engineers there in machine shops and equipment and lot. And we let everyone have access to all the stuff for their personal projects and things. And so we attract a lot of people that are into making things and designing things. And it's like a playground for them. With all the stuff that's available, and we try to extend that to other people, like in non-engineering roles, just make whatever we have, make it available for everyone. those are a couple of things. we have a decision making, so we train everyone and we rely on everyone to make decisions starting, we call it the unit presidency. Whether it's like changing something or making a decision we try to empower people, give them all the information they need. Transparency is another big thing. So we share all the information that we possibly can with everybody so that they can make informed decisions. And some people are not comfortable with that. Some people want to just have a boss that tells 'em what to do. And so that's not such a good match for our company. So it's a little harder on the brain and more stressful sometimes to have to make decisions. But we get people used to making decisions like as if they own the company, which they also do. So we give out stock options every year and people become owners. So it's all employee owned too.

Bill: this is really inspiring, Jesse. I didn't know all of this. This is so great. So great. So I, we could probably spend the rest of our time just talking about the culture in your company. I do ask, wanna ask a couple more questions about that. But then I'd like to move on in the direction of, your inspiration to drop down into part-time and focus on coaching and get trained in IFS Before we go there though, how many are on the team now?

Jesse: oh, in oh, which team?

Bill: your engineering

Jesse: Oh, yeah, about 170 or so. It'll,

Bill: Wow. Wow. Jesse, when did you start your business? When did you and the Frisbee partner meet in the front room and decide to start a business?

Jesse: Oh yeah, that was 2001, so 24 years ago and

Bill: 24 years ago now you've got a hundred, a team of 175 who are all aligned with the value of autonomy, personal responsibility, creativity. Am I getting it?

Jesse: yeah. Yep,

Bill: Fantastic.

Jesse: right.

Bill: Where, wow. Where did you guys learn this? Did you make it up along the way or did, had you been trained or educated in this way? In some way.

Jesse: no, we may, yeah, we learned as we went along. A couple of the founders worked at a, another company that had, they brought some of that culture with them what they learned there, some of the systems that they learned, they introduced it. At ber. And so that was part of it. We tried, we did learning research and learning and had some, we stumbled sometimes, so we would learn different management techniques. Oh, we had a book club for a long time, manage different management style books and we would review them and come back and we tried some things that felt a bit forced and probably weren't the right fit for us. and yeah, reading about what other companies did that, companies that we wanted to be more like, but none of us. Yeah. Actually one of the founding partners got an MBA. He was off getting his MBA when I started, so he brought mostly financial knowledge and yeah. Other parts, other things he learned in MBA.

Marty: so it sounds like there w. Was there, what was the motivation to go out and start getting trained in IFS and coaching and all those, these other things that, was there a motivation or did, was there just time for it and so you did it. How did that come about?

Jesse: I got to a point and I noticed the other people in the executive team. Were asking me if I was all right. Sometimes, and I was like, oh, are you all right, Jesse? Something doesn't seem right and I, yeah. So I guess one thing that was going on was I would think about what's the next phase or step for this? And I thought about us growing another five or 10 times or something, and some financial figure. Number of employees, and that didn't really excite me. And so I was realized I was a bit lost in what I wanted to do. And and I, yeah, I don't need a private jet or helicopter or a boat or I, my financial needs. I'm a fairly minimalist and I don't need a lot of things. Yeah. Tons of money wasn't a big motivator, but one thing I had, so I had a man club that I was part of around that time, and we did a, it was called Compassionate Witnessing, and there's three of us, and that was maybe seven or eight years ago we started. And we had this great system of connection and seeing each other. So the system is, we basically just go around in a circle. One of my friends is a psychiatrist and he brought this approach in and we share, sometimes there's a topic and we share what's going on for us, and then the other two reflect back what we're seeing in the other person and what it brings up in us, and yeah, and basically focusing on the emotions that are involved in this, in the situation in our life. And it was just like, it felt so good just to have that connection and see people and be seen. And that's what, and I was like, I want more of this as my career. And so that's what got me into coaching. And then I, yeah, after I figured out what options were available, so I guess it was two and a half years ago, I took a coaching program and it was called Leadership and performance and leadership coaching. And then. Yeah. And then maybe, yeah, and then a year and a half ago I discovered IFS through a friend of mine who is practicing a somatic workshop she was taking, and she practiced on me IFS and immediately I was like, oh, wow. I found this sad part that I'm pushing away and this sadness needs to be seen and allowed into my system. And. Be part of my system and I wanna know more about this IFS and then I Yeah, eventually, yeah, then I signed up and got that training

Bill: With I-F-S-C-A.

Jesse: I-F-S-C-A. Yeah. And now I am, I'm just starting the next level of their program right now,

Bill: Oh, stepping Up. Is it called or adv?

Jesse: stepping deeper. Yeah.

Bill: Stepping deeper. Yeah. Yeah. That's

Marty: I love hearing that. I think that, I, so I have a goodly number of engineering e either engineers or engineering type. C cus clients in my practice they might be financial services, engineering minded, not like coders or electric engineers. But they are they have that mindset of how things work.

Bill: Systems.

Marty: Yeah, that's a good way to say it, and, that. So I feel like they would love to ha to have the, that experience, like one, like you described where oh wow, I just discovered this part of me and all the relevance and ramifications of that. And there's this, I think there's a way in which the. Depending on the kind of system that you're working, it could prevent you from letting those, those experiences that are outside the system to happen and to revel in them and to have that kind of, I really felt you when you said that. Wow, there's this side part of me and so I'm curious like how when you work with people, do. To get them to be willing to have an outside the system experience.

Jesse: Oh yeah. When you're talking about systems people, yeah. I think all engineers and other people who are. About systems and think that way. I'm not sure the answer, but one pattern I think I noticed so far working with those kinds of people is with engineers. I noticed people, the first thing they discover is, oh, I've is two parts, maybe. Here's my logical. Part that's valuable and it's getting shit done, and then here's my bag of emotions in this other part that's maybe not worth paying as much attention to.

Jesse: And

Marty: Or at least that's how it seems.

Jesse: yeah, exactly. And then and then, so yeah, I find, I don't know if that's just a pattern in my. That I noticed myself or if there's anything valid about it. But then after then people recognize that, oh, those, the emotional side does need to be seen more. And once I like check in with it, oh yeah, it's screaming to have some attention. You've been pu locking me away over in this corner for so long. I need some attention. And sometimes the first step is just letting it know. Oh yeah. And they often, they can't, it's too much to like just bring all out at once. And sometimes the first step is just letting them know, getting them to let them know that whole emotional part, that they see it and they're willing to come back and get to know it. Bit by bit.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jesse: like I lost track of your question and I'm going off on a tangent there.

Marty: you wanna go back and re plug into the question anyway. Let me say something in between so you can muddle on that. I think of myself as a systems person, a systematic thinker but. I also am a very creative person. In fact, I keep rediscovering that part of myself that got shut down when I was young and keeps wanting to be rediscovered. And then I go, I fall back into, a bunch of systems that prevent him from just enjoying, creating my life. And being creative and doing creative things. So that, that's definitely coming in pieces. Like it's, I haven't fully realized that little boy's dreams yet, but he does keep reasserting himself, which is great, and I encourage that in him. So anyway that's where I'm coming from as I ask this question.

Jesse: Yeah, I, and when you say that it just makes me think Yeah, how common that is when we start exploring people's systems and then that creative. Part after some exploration. Yeah. This creative part really wants to come out and be seen and be expressed in people's lives and yeah, I, that really resonates with me too.

Bill: You are saying, Jesse, that when you do internal exploration, you notice that you're creative. Juices flow better.

Jesse: Yeah. And sometimes I notice in myself and other people, sometimes there's, a creative after the exploration and maybe an unburdening or something, these creative this part now just wants to create and it wants to yeah. What's it wanting to do for you now? And it's life and it wants and creative creating things and joy and dance and play is often like a common theme. And yeah, I noticed that in myself too.

Marty: the thing around that you mentioned earlier around I don't really need a bunch more money at all that when I'm, even, when I'm in that place financially. There's another part that's you can't just go off and play. You can't just go be creative. You've got to sit down and do some work here. So that little kid gets, okay I'll go, hide out for a while.

Jesse: Me too. Yeah. And yeah, those parts that just tell you like they're telling you how you need to be responsible and even if they don't remember why.

Marty: exactly. Or even if I remember why, because dad said so, and then I remember how dad ran himself, basically into the grave, working. Don't stop working, keep working.

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. My dad too. Yeah, that's definitely a message was really like a

Bill: dad was a hard work working hippie.

Jesse: Yeah. It was a weird combo, but yeah, he was a hard working hip. He was a carpenter contractor, but yeah, he would always mostly worked for himself. But yeah, he had, yeah he worked a lot and would get up early and go to bed late and he was very stressed out a lot. And, yeah. And yeah, instilled, yeah, that was definitely a message I got a lot was, yeah, you have to excel and work hard and succeed, but he, he had long hair and smoked pot too, so we're all made up of different parts.

Bill: Best of the, thus the hippie. And you also noted in some information that you provided coming into the podcast episode that, that you lived in poverty growing up, that you didn't even have running water.

Jesse: Yeah, I wouldn't describe it as poverty probably because I think my parents chose to have this little piece of land in the woods in Nova Scotia on the east coast of Canada. And they went there on purpose and, we had a little farm and a lived in a little shack really. And with some, a few animals, cows and pigs and ducks and geese and ve big vegetable gardens. And I think they were just trying to live off the land. And we walked down the path to a hand pump and we had to prime it and carry up pockets of water to the house up until maybe I was seven or so when my parents split up. But it was, and when you, when I think of that that there was nothing less happy about that lifestyle than having the comforts that I have now. So I think, yeah, it would never tie happiness. Like we, we were never lacking for food and, and I would say whether, how much love you get and how much I got it varied sometimes. My dad was angry a lot and sometimes I lived in fear because of that. But there was also love there too. And I think that that can be the same whether you're like carrying water up a path or have all the luxuries in the world, I think.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Jesse, I want to go back to a comment that you made, your fellow employees, your peers in your business. Prior to you getting curious about a different path you talked about your friend who's a psychiatrist and brought the, what is it called? The compassionate,

Jesse: Compassionate, witnessing.

Bill: compassionate what? Compassionate wi thing in your man club. You called it.

Jesse: Yeah,

Bill: I'm used to hearing the term men's groups, but this is man club. I'd not heard that before.

Jesse: oh yeah. I guess we, we haven't landed on a name yet, and that's what's in my calendar. We can't after seven years. Yeah. We can't agree on a name. We, it's,

Bill: And it's still going then yeah. Yeah. And is it still just the three of you?

Jesse: Yes. We've in Invi, we almost had other people along the way, but it didn't really pan out. Yeah. So one of your employees or fellow coworkers would say to you, are you okay? Jess, Jesse? And and then later you reported here in this conversation that IFS introduced you to a sad part. Is that what they were seeing? What were they seeing? I've been meaning to ask them actually. Good question, but maybe distractedness. And Yeah. Sad part. Yeah. Actually I was allowing, yeah. Through all the different work I did, I was allowing those emotions back into my life and I learned how to cry again at my mid forties, like through some of that work and 'cause I pushed that away and. So yeah, I was allowing more emotions in and I'm not sure if they were seeing that, but I was also, I would say just not sure of my path and discontented. Whereas maybe before it, it might have been more, I was like really engaged in the business and plans and all the details and then I

Bill: You hear me?

Jesse: probably becoming less engaged 'cause I was. Knew that there was a new direction coming.

Bill: Marty, do you have a trail head? If not, I'll dive into it. Another segment here.

Marty: No, go ahead. I was just, I'm just. at the moment on how we read each other. Like we, he's not here. Like he's someone what's up with him? We can read each other so well. Even if you're not trained, you know it. So that's marvelous that they shared what they saw.

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah, that's one thing. That I really appreciated such a caring group of people. And so that is probably, that's a big part of the success too. Yeah. Working with caring people that all care about each other, and put pressure on each other at times too. Like any kind of relationship.

Bill: So now, Jesse, you're you're working as an IFS coach. Do I understand?

Jesse: Yeah.

Bill: and, the, your clients are engineers or others as well.

Jesse: I am finding that I have kind of two different groups of clients right now, and yeah, some of them are engineers and I, it, that's usually it starts with a more traditional coaching approach with them. And then I introduce. I let them know about the IFS and introduce parts as we go along, and your your help's been great there, bill too, helping me figure that out.

Bill: Oh, good. So I'd really like if you're willing to have you break down, what do you mean when you say and I'm asking on behalf of our listeners. Let me set this up a little bit better. Internal Family Systems is a therapy model. no therapist in this conversation right now. We're all coaches. You and I are trained in the IFS model. Jesse, I would say that Marty's, and then you might have said that your, this yourself before Marty you're IFS informed, you've been in enough conversations with me and others around the IFS model that you're certainly informed, and I know you've done some reading about it.

Marty: It comes out in my coaching. Even if I, from that familiarity it, it does play a role in my coaching.

Bill: How do you not.

Marty: Exactly Once you understand that you and everybody in the world has parts, how do you not refer to

Bill: those to them? So there, but at first, when people are first introduced to the IFS model, and I'm not sure how many of our listeners would fall into that category. Maybe there aren't, maybe people are listening because they dislike the conversation around true self and they don't, and what they know about IFS they've learned by listening to the podcast. But in any case. There are so many different levels of support that, that you can get from IFS trained and IFS informed people, and I'll just name some of them. There's the if FS coach that's you and me, Jesse. There is the IFS therapist, which I would say is like on the o other end of the continuum. If FS coaching and IFS therapy and I'd like to get into a little bit of talking about what can somebody expect to have different, have happened different in a IFS coaching relationship than in an IFS therapy relationship. And then there's the IFS practitioner who can be a bit of a hybrid of both, where the practitioner can act like coach, can act like therapist and maybe even applies it in a specialized and customized way, the IFS model to things like somatic work and massage and physical therapy and being a physician and that sort of thing. So when you say your relationship with your engineer client starts out in the more traditional coaching. Forum or format. What do you mean by that?

Jesse: I usually start with them presenting the issue and what they want to change in their lives, what they want to be different, and maybe tease out a goal and yeah, presenting the issue and finding out what's important to them and what their values are, and where their actions might be misaligned with their values

Bill: And so far, you're not talking about parts yet, you're talking to pe. What do you want coaching to help you achieve? And what's important to you about that? What's gotten in your way? Those kinds of questions and conversations.

Jesse: yeah. And I'm still every time, sometimes I feel like I have it totally figured out and then sometimes I realize, oh, I don't. But what I do is. I am always being a parts identifier too, as that's going on. And so as we get to some point I'll say, okay, I notice there's a part of you that is thinking this and a part of you that's thinking this. Does that make sense to you? and and then sometimes people, some, yeah, sometimes people don't really resonate with that language and. It's yeah, they don't want to jump on board with that model and that's fine. And I just keep going with other traditional coaching methods. But then some people yeah, really oh yeah, and they will dive in deep and get to know those parts and then we can have some more traditional IFS getting to know the parts. And then from what I've learned from you too, bill is like when people identify goals. And and actions just like looking at what parts are gonna get in the way of doing that next thing. And how do all the parts feel about taking that next step? Making sure all the parts are on board.

Bill: And so then you check back with their original stated goals for coaching to see if they've remained the same or if they're making progress. Is that the idea?

Jesse: Yeah. Yep.

Bill: Okay.

Jesse: yeah. And then. I think well, as you, I think from an earlier question to, it just made me think about the other kind of group of clients I have are, it's more pure IFS work. They want IFS and I in some, I work with a few people who are. Early, starting their IFS training and want more, want to get more IFS and I am not using the word therapy on purpose. But I am, since I have the training in IFS, most of my class were therapists. And I think I might have been the only non therapist there, but it, yeah, I would

Bill: Most of the people that you trained with were therapists. You were one of the only, if not. The only non Yeah. Interesting. Okay.

Jesse: As a coach I'm trying, I am a little scared of using the word therapy because yeah. 'Cause it's because of the way that it's defined as different from coaching.

Bill: Yes. You are learning a therapy model just as I did. And now you're tasked with figuring out how to use a therapy model in coaching so that it's not therapy and you're not a therapist.

Jesse: Yeah.

Bill: Yes. Yeah. And what is the concern? You say you, you're careful about using the word therapy. Why?

Jesse: I guess one, one thing I noticed is with the IFS training, I feel like IFS gives a full set of tools to handle all the things that are going on with you and your life. And some people have some really tough parts that are really tough on themselves. And

Bill: critics.

Jesse: yeah, critics and and then but there's still, there's the whole therapy model of diagnosing, that, just the knowledge of that, the expertise that people need there. That's outside of the IFS model, but that always comes in and makes me nervous. Like whenever yeah I think I am, yeah, I'm yeah, that, that makes me a bit nervous about getting into the,

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. So I understand completely. I understand completely. I have the same concerns. In fact I've gone to great length to write a lot of articles about what is the difference between coaching and therapy and what can you expect in therapy. That's different than what you can expect in coaching. And honestly, even as much effort as I've put into getting, clarifying that distinction, it's a very fine line. But you pointed to one that's a blatant obvious one. Number one, coaches don't diagnose. We, I wouldn't say to a client given that you're bipolar, I wouldn't, that's not my business. But what I might say to a client is I'm noticing that. Last time you came in for a session, you were all excited about this, and today I noticed that you're just down on it. Can we explore that? Can we explore what's happening and what's gotten in the way without a preconceived idea that, oh, because this client is bipolar, this is what I should expect from them. And then let me just assume that they have mental illness or whatever that might mean to a clinician. So there, there's definitely some care to be taken there because IFS is a therapy model. I want as a coach to make sure that I'm not acting as a therapist. And that can be confusing. But what you described as the coaching, traditional coaching approach of identifying objectives, accountability, that sort of thing is what actually makes the difference. But you're adding some power to it because when their parts now get activated around achieving a goal that they've never achieved before, you can assist them by helping them get curious about those parts.

Jesse: Yeah. And a couple things come to mind when you say that. One is one thing that I've noticed is sometimes at the end of a session when people have gone really deep and gotten to know parts and I guess are in a lot of self energy there's a coaching part of me that's saying, okay, now let's talk about the next goals and stuff and what are you gonna do next? And that kind of made the whole situation a bit worse. And really they just need to finish and be in that space. And then allow insights to come in and basically I'm pull by bringing that up. I'm pulling them out of a good place that they're in. And so that's part of the, something that I've learned is just, yeah, allow people to be there and allow the insights and things to, that can come in like for hours or days after the session.

Bill: Are right. So for con continuity between sessions, then you must then bring back that. Now given you've had this experience in your, had all these insights, how does this apply to your objective, your or your coaching goal?

Jesse: Yeah. Yep.

Bill: now that they've had some time to percolate?

Jesse: Yeah. Yep.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: So you said you have IFS. Therapists who are doing IFS coaching with you, is that right?

Jesse: Yeah. Most of the people in my class, in the courses I've taken are, were therapists. And I'd say some clients are, yeah, right now, not necessarily therapists but they're taking an IFS. Yeah, they're taking an IFS course.

Marty: And they. They want coaching as opposed to therapy.

Jesse: they just want to experience the IFS system and get to know their parts and be, so that they can be better prepared to be an IFS practitioner themselves, which I think is really important. I try to always keep that going and I feel like it's a lifetime. Process, getting to know myself and my parts.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: You must be more complicated. I got myself all figured out long ago.

Bill: Yeah. What did you figure out, Marty? What's the unified model of Marty

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Jesse I'm also curious about, given the training and experience that you've had in your life, there's the model, there's the application of the model. There's a process that we've all been trained in that have been trained in the model, so we know how to help a client identify trailhead and parts to explore. We know how to begin to distinguish the difference between these different kinds of parts. There's managers and firefighters and exiles and so that all, that can not always I've learned that not always, but it can provide to the trained practitioner. Like a map, an internal map or an image of what's happening in there, what's happening in the human psyche, that they, that there are parts and that there is self. And so with that kind of a model, it makes, it, makes it a little, for me, anyhow, a little bit easier once I started understanding this, to know where I was on that map and what the goal of exploring these parts was, were in the first place. I'm guessing you probably have a map or a model in your own mind about what is the path when you meet with a client and they, for example, like you just said, they just wanna know how to use the IFS model so they can become better practitioners. That's a coaching objective right there. I wanna understand the model better so that I can be a better practitioner. What would understanding the model better by doing their own work with their own parts, how could that help them to be better practitioners?

Jesse: yeah I guess I just think of my own experience. Yeah, every time I, yeah, every time I have the experience being a client I guess one I learned from the practitioner the questions and the way they directed the session, that, and I picked stuff up from that. And then, yeah, every time I learn and appreciate a new, find a new part of myself or a new aspect of a part, or appreciate. A new part that helps me have better understanding of other people. Like a, and all the broad variety of parts that could come up for other people. 'cause I can know that in my whole system and feel it. And I can be, yeah, I think it allows me just to be there more with the person and just know, oh yeah, I know, I get that. I know that.

Bill: Yeah, so they might be going in to this level, in this depth for the first time, but because you've done your own depth of work that. You're not intimidated by that. You can go there with them and continue to be their guide, their Sherpa as they go inside.

Jesse: Yeah. And maybe have confidence know that everything's gonna be all right. They can handle that. Part's gonna be safe. 'Cause. I found out in the end it's safe for me.

Bill: in the IFS model. What seems to be, and what is accepted and and practiced is that at the core of a burdened system is a burden. And how would you define a burden, Jesse?

Jesse: thinking of one example, I think, yeah, so one example of a burden for myself, this might not be a definition, but just the expectations. Like a part of me that I've gone through a lot was just carrying this, the burden of. Oh, one example would be needing, being just responsible for the world and all the people in my life. And it's just carrying this heavy responsibility, like this part needs to find the solution. Yeah. And if this part doesn't carry this burden, catastrophe's gonna happen. And ultimately, yeah, this part, like I won't be loved. I'm giving up my res, if I don't carry this responsibility, I won't be loved or have a place in the world. And allowing, yeah. So through the process of IFS getting to know this part and allowing it to trust that it can give up this burden and see that it, where it picked it up and that it doesn't carry this. It doesn't need to carry this responsibility and then helping it walk through the process of releasing that responsibility or burden in a way that like it can feel in the whole system.

Bill: Really well said. So in the example that you just gave, being trying to be responsible for something that you can't be or not becomes a heavy burden. And when a part finally realizes that they don't need to carry that heavy burden anymore and they can release it. And that frees up that protective system that's been organized around that burden for as long as it has been often decades.

Jesse: Yeah. Yeah. And now how that shows up for me is, oh, I don't I don't have to be responsible for all my siblings and family and all the problems in the world, and I don't have to carry that responsibility. I can still feel the pain and recognize the pain and suffering that's happening, but I don't have to. I. Carry it as my own and

Jesse: I can live lighter.

Bill: Yeah. Yep. Yep. When you're traveling lighter, you can make more, you can travel more of a distance and enjoy the road a little bit. Enjoy the journey, the better.

Jesse: Yeah.

Bill: We are coming up on the time to end, and I wanna make sure that if, as people have listened and as they relate to you, Jesse and resonate and. I imagine possibly working with you. I wanna know, I want them to know where to find you and how, what's the process look like if somebody wants to work with you, first of all, how do they find you?

Jesse: They can go to my website, recharge coaching.ca and they can click a, link there on the page to. Let's schedule a clarity call, discovery call and I'm on LinkedIn

Bill: the cost for that?

Jesse: and that's free. Thanks for asking, bill. Yep.

Bill: The discovery call free. Okay, and how long does that take?

Jesse: Usually 20 minutes. And yeah, I, yeah, I schedule 20 minutes for that and sometimes it gets a bit. I often allow it to go a bit longer if we get into the And what's the purpose for that call? That is to see if we're a good fit for each other. I let clients know what I have to offer. They can get a feel for me and the tools that I offer, and they can provide a bit of a, an. They can see if that feels right for them, if it's a good match, and they can give me a bit of an overview of what they're dealing with and what they wanna get out of working with me, and I can see if that if that's the right type of work for me too. So

Bill: Yeah,

Jesse: feel for if it's right to work with each other.

Bill: Recharge coaching.ca and then you just take it from there.

Jesse: Yeah.

Bill: Okay. Anything else you'd like the listener to know before we sign off?

Jesse: can't think of anything. Yeah I think what's coming to mind is what you say a lot, bill, you're a full, whole and complete. Do I have the right

Bill: Hold perfect and complete. Yep.

Jesse: Yeah. no. But yeah, I look forward to hearing from anyone who wants to get in touch and yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation. It felt like it flew right by.

Bill: it really did. Anything else, Marty, that you wanna say or add?

Marty: No, it's just a joy to meet you and if you want you can come back sometime. We could talk some more. It's so yeah, thank you for

Bill: there is a lot more to talk about. Jesse, you gave us a lot of talking points that we never got to today. For example, psychedelics. You've got some experience with that, with meditation looking for answers in the universe. Several things that we could continue to talk about. Yeah maybe give it a little bit of time, a little bit of breath. I'd love to talk with you sometime back on the podcast after our parts work, practice conference is completed, to see how that experience was for you and before our next one in January. Maybe we schedule another one then.

Jesse: Yeah, that would be great.

Bill: Okay. Marty, Jesse, thank you guys. Until next time.

Jesse: Thank Pleasure. Thank you both.