Tony Martignetti: Illuminating Hidden Brilliance through Leadership, Glassblowing, and Poetry

0:06 We are these black boxes that are just, you know, walking around without really knowing what's on, what's hidden inside. And what I came to believe is that when we find that spark, the inner light, that's when our brilliance becomes apparent. But we have to be willing to really do the work to find out what it is that's missing, what is not illuminated inside of us and bring next to the surface. I'm excited to talk with Tony Martinetti, the Leadership advisor who helps leaders navigate complexity without losing themselves. With over 30 years across high tech and life sciences, he has worked where innovation, pressure, and uncertainty collide. His defining insight brilliance doesn't disappear in organizations, it goes dormant when people are asked to fragment themselves to perform.

1:00 Through inspired purpose partners, Tony designs experiences that integrate purpose, presence, creativity, and connection to drive meaningful impact. He is the author of Climbing the Right Mountain and Campfire Lessons for Leaders, host of the Virtual Campfire Podcast, and a keynote speaker known for crafting campfire spaces for honest, expansive dialogue. Tony, welcome to the show. Well, thank you so much for having me here and I'll just say you are a wonderful guest on my show, which was just wonderful to have you on and I'm so thrilled to be here.

1:41 Yeah, it's so nice to be in conversation with people that you admire and you feel kind of like just mutually in the same orbit. And that's exactly how I feel about you. You and I were first introduced by a mutual coach friend, Kathy Onetto, who is also wonderful. And you and I also had the chance to collaborate on an article titled The Future of Leadership is Multifaceted for Fast Company. And I'm curious, just to start off, how do you see multifaceted leadership coming up in your work these days? Yeah, I mean, for me personally, it it's one thing, but what I see in general, for other people it's another. And I'll kind of explain both.

2:30 You know, for me, it was, you know, really holding back the artistic side of who I was and seeing it as something that I didn't, didn't belong in the work I was doing. Even after coming into the world of coaching and facilitation and helping people to learn and grow, I felt like still something was missing, even though I had traded my corporate hat for my independent facilitator hat. And the art part of me, the artist part of me was still on the sidelines waiting to be expressed. But when I did everything changed the the sense of aliveness that I brought into the room and my own expression, but also how I shifted people completely changed.

3:15 So that's one thing. But what I also see in other people is that people sometimes get into these patterns where they're just kind of going through the motions and just doing their work and they're performing their title, which maybe gets you by for a period of time. But at some point the light starts to dim and you start saying like, why don't I feel a connection to the work or why am I feeling disengaged? Was because they're leaving half of themselves outside or they're not feeling like they're fully expressed in their work. And so, yeah, that's where I see a lot of the people who I work with is that they feel like there's something missing and that the missing part is them.

3:56 Wow, yeah, I want to get deeper into this. How did you diagnose for yourself? What was the cause? Right? Like I think people sometimes feel that something's off or they're not feeling as alive, vibrant. How did you know for you that the art, the artist side was a big part of it? Yeah. I think some of the sometimes you just like I said, there's an autopilot element that goes on. You just kind of continue to go about your business, but you feel like, OK, you know, I don't know, I feel like there could be another gear. I mean, you've probably asked yourself this question. I'm sure I'm not alone. Like thinking, is this it is this is all there is to experience in my work, even when you're doing work that you love. But that sense of maybe existential questioning is what comes up.

4:49 And you start thinking, I need to find that other gear. And that other gear really comes from questioning, OK, well, what if I did something different? What if I were to pivot or create something different? And sometimes it's not about leaving the work. It's about, you know, changing the way you look at the work. And so that's that's how I started to see this show up is the sense of like, I think I need something different in this work. Now I'll just point out one thing this the moment that really made me think differently about this was a visit to a museum. So I'm happy to talk a little bit about that if you like. Yes, please.

5:30 OK, so about two or three years ago I was in a walking through a museum in Salem, MA, the PBD Essex Museum. And it just happened to stumble across this this exhibit called All the Flowers Are for Me, which is a beautiful, beautiful metal carved box that was hanging from the ceiling in this room. And inside of this box, there is nothing's fancy about the box itself besides like intricate carvings and what have you that you know, were laser cut I guess. And they put a light inside. And when the light shone out, this pattern, this beautiful pattern just shines a lot everywhere, the ceiling, the walls across anyone who walks in the room.

6:19 And so when I walked in, I was just completely blown away. I was like, wow, like this changes everything. I didn't know what it meant, but I knew at some point it just kind of connected to me that there's this is what we are. We are these black boxes that are just, you know, walking around without really knowing what's on, what's hidden inside. And what I came to believe is that when we find that spark, the inner light, there's that's when our brilliance becomes apparent. But we have to be willing to really do the work to find out what it is that's missing, what is not illuminated inside of us and bring next to the surface. For me, it happened to be art. It doesn't have to be art for everyone, but it could be something that you're just, you know, you stuff down over layers and layers of performative work that has let you say, OK, well, this doesn't belong in my professional life, but that's where we got it wrong.

7:20 Yeah, this is a great segue into talking a little bit about your book. So we a couple weeks ago, you and I finally got a chance to meet each other in person, which was so wonderful. We were at South by Southwest where you were launching your book Illuminating Hidden Brilliance. Talk to us about from that moment, that spark in the museum to your book, What? What was it like working on this project? And yeah, what do you hope people will get from it? Yeah, it's a great question. First of all, this book, as much as it's the most important book to me because I feel like it's it's the strongest message that I could ever have given as I feel it's important right now. It's also important for people to live the most meaningful life they can.

8:18 And so for for me, it was a journey of really embodying everything that I had said that I was missing and, and the, the work that I had spent years trying to figure out what's what is missing in my life and then going on the quest to learn from others as to what was missing in their lives. And so through this process, I feel like this book embodies a lot of those elements. And it took me not as long as I thought to write because I, I was kind of receiving a lot of these messages over the period of time. And so when I sat down to write, it just flowed out of me almost like it was like divine intervention, if you will.

9:00 So, so it worked in that way, but I will say that I have to tell people when I when you write a book, you don't want to have the questions all answered in advance. You let the question be something that you're really seeking to answer. And so as I started to put pen to paper, things started to really evolve. I started seeing more parts of the story and got in dialogue with people and heard more of their stories. And so the book really evolved in a very beautiful way. So, and I think you yourself included, I mean really wonderful. And when we got into conversation, it helped to inform like more of the book from that so. Yeah, How did art really come back into your life, and what does your artistic practice look like these days? And it's a, it's a hard balance for sure. I know you can probably relate to this, to find that balance between running a business, you know, paying the bills and trying to find time for time for artistic expression. So for me, it's come back to me in many different ways #1 glassblowing is a big part of what I do, which I love. It's just, there's something about the practice that is really delicate, but yet also very, very intricate and, and surprising when you have this end product, which you don't know how it's going to end up.

10:23 And there's also the elements you're playing with this, you know, you have the, the sand, you have the, the, the heat, all the fire, all the things that are happening all at once. And so you don't like, you got to be very careful with all those things. It's not something you just play with. So Long story short, that's one of them. The other thing is poetry. Now, I had dabbled with poetry a long time ago, but I just kind of like, oh, no big deal. Not really a thing that I do. But for me, as I got to this place where I was having a hard time expressing myself emotionally, I found poet to be A to be a great gateway for the things that I just couldn't put into normal writing. So I, I really went off and started to explore this medium and spent a lot of time doing it. And so I'd probably write at least a poem a a month, if not more.

11:13 And it just really comes from wherever inspiration strikes. Wow, I'm really seeing a fire and light theme with so much of your work. Your podcast is called the Virtual Campfire. You have been hosting it since 2020 and you're prolific. You've done well over 300 episodes. I I looked that up. What do you hope your listeners take away from your podcast? Yeah, and I, I want to connect the dots between, you know, this illumination and the, the campfire, which besides the fire element, which is also nice, There's when I started the podcast, I, you know, my whole journey was, you know, really getting into conversation with people who have been through moments in their lives that have have ignited their gifts into their world. And what I, I really started to see as I had these conversations was that like early days, there's, you know, maybe in childhood or in our early adult lives, there are things that we get into because our, you know, almost like our heart pulls us into it.

12:21 And then life gets in the way and we start to kind of retract and fragment and start to do things that say, oh, well, I guess I should be doing something different because that's what I'm being forced into or being pulled into. But then we come back to it. It's almost like as a rhythm, we, you just say, I'm being pulled back into the thing that is most meaningful to me. Maybe it was a childhood, you know, childhood passion that you had and that becomes comes back. And so that's one of the patterns I saw a lot in the people I interviewed. There's also things that happen where a traumatic life event might just say, hey, look, enough is enough. I need to do something different, you know. So it's really about looking back, taking inventory, finding out what you left behind and using that as the medium to redefine the path forward.

13:20 Let's take a moment to think about this question. What have you left behind that you might want to bring back into your life? Are you an Ampersand? Looking for community inspiration and resources? Come join us in the cohort where we help you grow and scale your creative and professional aspirations. If you're looking for more dedicated support, ioffer executive coaching for business leaders, people managers, creatives, and of course, Ampersands. Find out more about the cohort and one-on-one coaching at jessica1.com. Now back to the show.

14:08 You are not only involved with virtual campfires, but also real ones. You've climbed many mountains, including summiting Mount Kilimanjaro, and you shared that it wasn't as much about the peak as much as the process. And I I'm curious what metaphors for leadership and life you gained from that experience. Yeah, I mean, I'll start from just the moment of saying go that I'm going to climb this mountain. It's like it's committing to a goal that's bigger than you than than your current place of where you are. So when I wrote my first book, Climbing the Right Mountain, someone said to me, you know, what's the next mountain you're going to climb?

14:52 What's the next thing you're going to do? And I said to myself, without even letting my, my mind catch up with my heart, Kilimanjaro. And, and so at that moment, that was about a year before I, I actually went and did it, putting that up into the world. It actually was the, for the first time, it cemented in my mind that that's what I'm going to do. And so I started to do the work to train, to make myself prepare myself for that process. But it's first the commitment that I made. And so I think that's a good lesson for us. Sometimes you just have to say, even if I'm not ready, what can I do to say the thing and then commit to the process.

15:35 So that's what I did. And then you get on the climb. And that climb is, it's something about the altitude and the changes and, and all of the different adaptability elements you have to create for yourself to say. It's not about a, a run up the mountain though. Trust me, there are a lot of people who are from Tanzania who could literally run that mountain in probably a day just because they're so used to it. But but for the average folk, you know, we have to take our time. We have to go slow. We have to, you know, make sure we're pacing ourselves because if you try to go too fast, you're ending, you're going to end up exhausted and burnt out.

16:15 Isn't that a great metaphor for business? Right. Yeah, I love that you just said yes. Go before you're ready. Yeah, and don't go alone too. I mean, there's that's the other part of this which I didn't mention, which is that, you know, nothing great happens on your own. You know, I may have been climbing, you know, step by step with my own 2 feet. But there was the encouragement, the the camaraderie of the people who I climbed with that really made it all possible. Yeah. You shared with me that one of your proudest moments was leaving a successful corporate career yourself to step into an uncertain path that was more aligned with who you were becoming. How did you personally realize this pivot from when you knew that it was no longer the right path to taking the actionable steps forward?

17:16 Well. Fear is a great motivator. No, I mean, at, at first there was this element of like, I, I need to take my, my life in my own hands. I need to take my, the, my destiny in my own hands. And because I felt like the the way things are going weren't aligned with who I was being. And if I wanted to have the life that was more fulfilling and more aligned with who I really was, I needed to do something different. And so that's what led me down this path of taking the leap out of the corporate world and trying something different.

17:57 But I always say in the back of my mind that like, you know what? Nothing is permanent. There's always, there's always a way back, even though sometimes it's not going to be easy and sometimes there's going to be, you know, people will have a perception of who you are, but that's fine. You know, I think everyone thinks that every move you make is a fine, a final move. That's not true. So as I made that leap out, one of the things that I, I connected to is there's really two quotes. I always think about #1 if you're feeling, if you're willing to feel everything, you can have anything That meant that I need to attach to this, this feeling of, all right, this is going to be ups and downs.

18:40 The emotional roller coaster of starting something new is, is a real thing. And it, it lasts me longer than I thought and still does. But that expectation of the ups and downs is what makes the journey worth it. Because if it was all just a, you know, everything's great, then you're not going to really enjoy the, the fruits of that labor. You know, that's one. The other thing was this quote that I don't know where it came from, but that amateurs compete and professionals create. And that has driven my mindset around how do I get in community with the right people who are even, you know, people who are peers, people who are in the same industry and doing the same thing, learning from them at humbly, but also sharing with them so that we don't have to always be thinking how do I beat them to the to the punch, but instead, how do we build a bigger pie? And you have built a lot of that pie. You're, you're a tremendous creator in terms of writing your podcast.

19:48 How do you cultivate your creativity? And, and I think by creativity, I mean both the being creative side and also just the creating, getting, getting the words out there, getting the stories out there. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to use the cliche term of I collect a ton of dots and then I connect them later. You know, there's just a, you know, life is like, you know, as you're navigating through your day, as you're walking around the streets, going to museums, wherever you're going, there's, there's inspiration everywhere if you're willing to actually open your eyes and see it. And so I am like doing that even in, in sessions with clients, you know, I'm collecting information that I'm like, that's an interesting insight.

20:35 I don't know where that's going to land yet, but I'm going to, I'm going to take it in. And when I do, then I have some time usually on a weekend. Why I call them my weekly spark. And in that weekly spark, I'm organizing myself around what's next. But I'm also looking back and I'm saying what happened and I'm, I'm trying to also look at what are the threads that I want to pull deeper and which ones do I want to say like, oh, maybe later, you know, so that organizing is about really connecting dots that are necessary to, to, to take something deeper. Yeah, lots of synthesis, reflection. I love it. And I'm glad you said that word synthesis 'cause I think that's, that's the thing that people who really are great creators are, are able to do synthesize really well. They don't have to be all original all the time. It's sometimes it's like taking from elements that they seem like, oh, you know, would it be so cool if you were to combine like, you know, a Mozart piece with like Metallica and like whatever, you know, see what happens. You know, that's a probably a bad example, but you know what I mean.

21:44 The fun and interesting mash ups that maybe haven't been done before. What do you think ties together all of your work, from leadership advising and speaking to being an artist and an explorer and running your podcast? Yeah, I think that the constant thread and there's two things I'll say. First of all, the the reality that there's always more to explore and there's always, you know, something that I can learn. So that beginners mindset of, you know, knowing that I'm far from having all the answers. And whenever like people say like, oh, you know, I love that insight or love your insights, whatever, whatever I'm like, that's great. And I'm not trying to diminish that. I'll, I'll take the, the, the, the recognition, but I'm always feeling like, you know, there's so much more that to, to, to uncover here.

22:40 And so I'm always feeling like a beginner on everything that I'm doing so. And on a practical level, how do you think about the work that you're doing in terms of your time and energy? It sounds like you make the time to reflect every week. What about your your weekdays? Like what do they look like? Well, I mean, not always fun, but you know, I just like, no, I don't mean it like that. I mean it's it's I have my crazy weeks for sure. And, you know, especially when there's fires that you put out, as, you know, running a business can often be that way when you have things that have, you know, kind of falling out of whack.

23:21 And especially when you're away for a period of time and you come back and you're trying to, you know, get back on track. But what I love is just is creating a cadence where you're starting to see like, OK, I want to make sure I have these some conversations that really fill me up so that those things charge me for the things that I have to do, like the, you know, business tasks that may may not light me up, but then creating space for those creative things that also create that that sense of charging me. One of the things that I always tell people, and this is something I do myself, I take my own medicine on this, is that I create structure. I said structure creates freedom. So when you create structure that says here's my block of time for creativity, here's my time for connection and and so on and so forth. I'm very diligent about those things because I think what happens is if you don't, what happens is you get stuck into the vortex of e-mail or you get stuck into the vortex of being on everyone else's timeline and not your own. And then what happens is you lose sight of your priorities. So I think creating structure is so critical because it allows you to operate within that structure. Yeah, you're really taking back control. Yeah.

24:38 One goal we have with this podcast is to Co create the Ampersand Manifesto principles for leading a multi passionate life. What are some of the principles that you live by if? I were to start with one principle that I think is really important for an ampersand is, is to integrate what you know with what you do. And what I mean by that is really the sense of, you know, they don't have to live separately. Integration is where you get to play and and let them have a little bit of friction from time to time. And that friction is where music gets made.

25:20 Tony, it's been so wonderful talking with you folks. You can check out Tony's work at tonymspeaks.com. I purpose partners.com and you can find him on LinkedIn and we'll link to these in the show notes. If you liked this show, share it with your friends and fellow ampersands and make sure to hit the follow button to be notified when new episodes drop. It would mean the world to us if you took two minutes to rate and review the show. Just go to the main show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and look for the stars. I had a chance to listen back on my conversation with Tony. He shared so many words of wisdom. Here are a few key takeaways that I had. One curiosity.

26:11 As a through line, Tony brought up the idea of curiosity and beginner's mindset in several areas of his work. I particularly liked how he characterized writing as not having all the answers already, but as a way of seeking. And even though writing needs to sometimes be a solitary endeavor, it seemed like Tony's writing really started to flow when he was in dialogue around the ideas. 2 Returning to a childhood passion a couple years ago, I was gifted a box of stuff from my dad's storage closet. In the box, I found a book that I wrote when I was 10 years old. There was a chapter titled What I Would Do with a Month of Free Time, and excitedly I flipped to it, expecting to read all about music.

27:09 Surprisingly, my answers were swimming and ice skating. Both of these I returned to in my 30s and 40s. I've actually spent the past two years teaching my kid to skate and finding a lot of joy in being back on the ice myself. It was great validation for me to see that the love of these activities never died, it was just dormant for a while. 3 Go before you're ready. I'm so inspired by Tony's story about committing to climb Mount Kilimanjaro before he really thought it through and then actually doing it.

27:52 I am a big believer in putting things out into the world. When you tell someone you're going to do something, it suddenly becomes more real. And here's the structure that Tony followed. One, commit to the process 2 then take the actions to get ready. And three, don't do it alone. Find camaraderie and support in other people.