‘Individuation’ With Psychologist And Consultant Anthony Metten

The Destiny Awakening Interviews is a podcast with Andrew Wayfinder and his guests.

Every week (sometimes more) we have a short focused interview with an expert, author, speaker designed to bring you powerful insights, inspiration and ways to break free, live life by your vision and values, and make a difference in our changing and challenging world.

Listen to the podcast at: https://www.andrewwayfinder.com/blog/DA0026

Andrew Hryniewicz

Hello everyone and a very warm welcome to another edition of the Destiny Awakening Interviews.

I’m Andrew Wayfinder Hryniewicz and I’m joined today by Anthony Metten, performance coach, leadership consultant, author, TEDx and keynote speaker.

And a very warm welcome to you, Anthony. And where are you hanging out today?

Anthony Metten

Thank you so much, Andrew. I am actually in San Jose, California. “Silicon Valley”, as they call it, is known around the world, I guess.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great.

Yeah, we were talking a little bit about how I used to live there, but it’s been quite a while.

Okay, so on to the subject of your work and your experience. Anthony Metten is the founder of anthonymetten.com, an ICF, professionally certified coach, keynote and TEDx speaker and trainer.

And, after a 20-year career in banking, where he rose to executive VP positions in companies such as Citibank and First Republic bank, Anthony reinvented himself by going back to school, to get a master’s degree in counselling psychology and career development.

And then, in 2007, he founded his consulting and training company, helping his clients with things like business turnaround and growth, strategic planning, leadership and performance development.

And his clients have included Adobe, Facebook, Gap, Apple, JPMorgan, PayPal, Cisco, the City of San Jose, Johns Hopkins, and Georgetown University, and many more.

So thank you, Anthony, for your time today. And your topic is “Individuation: What if who you are, isn’t really who you are?”. And this was actually the topic of his TEDx talk. So Anthony is going to unpack that idea in six questions. So…

Anthony Metten

I will certainly try.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Yeah, well, that’s, you know, this is the espresso shot format.

So, the first question is: Who is your ideal client? And what’s the transformation your work helps them achieve?

Anthony Metten

I would say my ideal client is, somebody who is open to possibilities…

What usually happens is, I get a business client who, you know, has a hurdle at work. They’re trying to get past… have something they want to accomplish in their career, or the personal life where we connect. That’s the topic offered.

And, after a session or two of building some trust and vulnerability, the client blossoms. And some of their inner thoughts and concerns around, possibly what they originally connected with me for, comes to light.

And then we start unpacking that, and it’s a beautiful moment…

Because it’s almost like, it’s the first time as an adult, they’ve been somewhere where they can be themselves, talk about what’s on their mind, without worrying about being judged, or if the topic is valid.

And, we just start sifting through this… and there’s a trust, and an awareness that comes to light. And again, you know, I don’t have the answers. They’re looking for the answers.

And together, we’re kind of digging through the suitcase “Hey, look at this” and “Hey, what about this?”

And it just… again, it’s funny, because the way… when you ask the question, it’s just a beautiful moment, as I work with this client, and the impact to really kind of understand their life in a deeper way.

Andrew Hryniewicz

So the number two question: What’s the biggest challenge they’re facing? Is there a characteristic pain point or thing that triggers them coming to see you?

Anthony Metten

Yeah, I would say, unbeknownst to them, they come to realize they have spent their entire life “Being who somebody else wanted them to be.”

Whether it be their parents, their siblings, their spouse, their employer, their kids… You know, as I like to say, in life, we tend to become who we believe, others believe we’re supposed to be.

It’s not that they believe it, it’s not that we believe it… But we believe that, they believe that this is the way we’re supposed to be. And so that’s the way we behave.

And so, the awakening is they start to realize that “You know what, I actually have a choice.” This person I’d become isn’t somebody I’ve chosen to become. It’s me behaving the way I felt I was expected to behave.

And all of a sudden, they realize “I have a choice”. And then they start to decide.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Well actually, that reminds me that the number one regret people have in hospice, when they are reflecting on their life, which has suddenly been cut short, is that “I never really did what I wanted to do with my life”.

Anthony Metten

Yeah, you know, I actually grabbed the URL, your next life coach… you know, in conversations about my next life, “I want to do this”, right.

We all have great plans for our next life. But you know, we’re here now, why don’t we live that now?

Andrew Hryniewicz

Yeah, that’s perfect.

So that comes to question number three. So, what’s the number one insight you would share with people to help them right now?

Anthony Metten

You know, I probably would grab the three ending questions that I have in my TED Talk.

And that is, you know, to ask yourself…

“Is who you are, who you really are? Is it your life that you’re living? Are you doing the job that you want to be doing? Are you living where you want to be living? Are you involved in the hobbies you want to be involved in?”

“Is who you are, who you really believe you are?”

Next question is:

“Are the expectations you’re fulfilling in life yours or someone else’s? Whose vision is it?”

And thirdly:

“Are you doing what makes you happy every day? And are you able to do even the difficult things without much effort? Or do you struggle to fulfill the basic requirements of the expectations put on you?”

If you answer those three questions, and give them some time and space to really consider the answers, I think you may be amazed at what you uncover.

Again, it’s simple stuff. But that’s the beauty of it.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great. So question number four, what concept, book, program, talk, or experiences had the greatest impact on your development? What jumps out at you?

Anthony Metten

When I hired my first executive coach, because I wanted a promotion that I was working on, but couldn’t get.

And I strategized that if I hired an executive coach, because I was at a level where my company wouldn’t do that for somebody like me.

So I hired my own executive coach before it was a thing.

And what we quickly discovered was that, the reason I wasn’t getting my promotion had nothing to do with my job performance.

It was because I was still that little boy, behaving the way my family expected me to be to behave, and working hard to please everyone around me. And I’m sure you can see in the corporate world that doesn’t fly.

And so having that peeling of the onion… the layers and understanding why I behaved and acted the way I did on a daily basis. That was the turning point in my life.

Andrew Hryniewicz

That actually reminds me, a tremendous number of my clients are executive women, which was initially very strange to me, because I’m neither.

But what I realized over time, is that a lot of them had a trauma history, which was rearing its head at work, and in life. And that’s why they were coming to see me.

It was very unconscious, because I have a trauma history that I’ve done a lot of work on.

So that definitely, we carry these things with us. And if they’re not resolved, you know, they continue to be a problem.

Anthony Metten

And that’s a perfect example of, you know, you come to a coach to accomplish something.

And really the work that needs to be done is at a different level. But you accomplish that thing you set out to accomplish by working on that other stuff.

But it doesn’t just fix that problem. It allows you to understand so many different aspects of things you haven’t even come across yet.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Right. So question number five, is there a free resource you’d like to share with the audience to help them out today?

Anthony Metten

Well, surely they can go to my website, anthonymetten.com. They can find me on LinkedIn. And on both those sites, you know, I have my email address and phone number.

And you know what, I offer anybody who’s interested a 30-minute phone call, zoom call, to just talk and see what comes out of it. And again, there’s no expectations of follow ups.

It’s just that opportunity to be in a safe place, where you can just be yourself for a moment and take a breath.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great. So that’ll be in the show notes.

And the last question Anthony, what should I have asked you that I didn’t?

Anthony Metten

Well, I would say, you know, the word “Individuation” is something, hardly any of us have ever heard of… if you saw the word, you couldn’t pronounce it.

And yet, it’s something that occurs in all of our lives, potentially multiple times. And for simplicity sake, I like to compare it to adult puberty.

In other words, as kids, no matter your family environment and your upbringing, that around the age of 13, something is gonna happen… Your body’s gonna change, your outlook on life, you know, you hear these stories about things that are gonna happen.

But as adults, we never know that, there’s such a thing about Individuation that we’re going to go through. And when we’re going through it, if we’ve never heard of it, we feel like our life is falling apart, and that somehow we’re to blame.

And the reality is that, this is just a natural process of… almost like a reptile shedding its skin so it can grow and evolve.

Individuation is how we as adults grow and evolve.

And knowing that it’s a natural process of life, I think it allows you to go from kind of that white knuckle passenger mentality, to a little more in control and understanding that, you know, this is going to work out for the better.

Andrew Hryniewicz

And so, is individuation from your standpoint, maybe the positive side or what’s actually behind what we describe as a “midlife crisis”? …that gets derailed into sports cars and that sort of activity.

Anthony Metten

If you dig into the whole idea of individuation, the idea that, you know, midlife crisis is a form of individuation, and those two are somehow connected.

And as a society, you know, we’ve kind of built those two together… Yes, absolutely.

Because for many of us, we don’t go through our first phase of individuation till our 40s and 50s, which again coincides perfectly with the midlife crisis.

Andrew Hryniewicz

Okay, great.

Well, that’s been a great conversation. Anthony, thanks so much for your time.

Anthony Metten

Thank you for having me, Andrew.

Narrator

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