041 Designing a Legendary Life With the Man Who “Saved Metallica” Phil Towle

Christopher Lochhead Follow Your Different™

Today, the incredible performance coach Phil Towle sits with us for his very first podcast. He and Christopher have a very big, deep and adult conversation about life design, crisis and failures, building relationships and loads more. Hold tight, this dialogue gets very personal. Break Down to Break Out One of Phil’s approaches in coaching is called the 'Breakdown as a Breakout Opportunity'. He normally starts by asking clients what they're going through and from there, he can get a picture of what that means to them. Phil sees this as a breakthrough opportunity. He takes crises as chances to look back since those that we have personally experienced can be the most catalytic. "The crisis may be in some ways more about my resisting change, getting out of comfort zone and doing something that I need to do to go forward than anything else.” - Phil Towle When Crises Arise Phil sees a crisis as very personal as we have to look at our part in the challenge. To deal with it, we need to slow the process down rather than focusing and having the desire to change in an attempt to make life better. We should ask ourselves, “How did I co-create this? What's my part of the conflict?” Once identified, we can then position ourselves to make the change. Do we cut and run or do we persevere? "We co-created crisis out of necessity because we need to make a change, some kind that we're resisting.” - Phil Towle Relationships Founded on Authenticity Building relationships, whether short-term or long-term, do not have to be hard. If we continue to create authenticity in our interactions, we build a kind of intimacy that makes it easier for us to do so. The best way to approach it is to have the desire to make sure that you maintain present interaction in a way that is meaningful. Have the openness of someone that is constructing a long-term relationship and make sure that you and the other party are honest with each other. Invest in the quality of the experience so that in the case that things go downhill and you decide to abandon the relationship, you will constructively move forward. You will take each other with you and the relationship practically never stops. “When I'm not constructive, or when I start to build expectations of how I want you to be, then our relationship is misshapen. It takes on a different form that's likely to end in some kind of trauma because I haven't respected you. I made you a conformer or tried to make you conform to my agenda.” - Phil Towle To hear more about Phil's take on crises, mental health and failures, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Phil Towle defines “performance coaching” as a proactive psychological strategy that facilitates making your best better. Phil works with “Difference makers” committed to using their God-given talents to fulfill their highest possibilities, and those around them determined to transform each hardship, setback and self-imposed limitation, into superior achievement. His clients include: Metallica; Dick Vermeil (Superbowl Winning Coach with St. Louis Rams); Bill Romanowski (Professional Athlete); Rascal Flatts; Tom Morello (musician with Rage Against Machine/ Audioslave/ Nightwatchman, and Human Rights Activist) Links: PhilTowle.com Metallica documentary featuring Phil Towle working with the band:“Some Kind of Monster” We hope you enjoyed Phil Towle on this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!