Have you ever stopped to wonder if you’re climbing the right mountain in your entrepreneurial journey, or simply chasing someone else’s vision of success? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, we dig deep into what it means to lead with purpose and authenticity, challenging common assumptions about leadership, fulfillment, and growth for founders and investors alike. Our guest, Tony Martignetti, is an accomplished leadership coach, author, and founder of Inspired Purpose Partners. With over 30 years of experience in high-tech and biotech finance and strategy, Tony Martignetti made a bold leap from corporate life to become a transformational force for leaders across industries. He’s the author of two insightful books—Climbing the Right Mountain and Campfire Lessons for Leaders—and shares a preview of his upcoming work, Illuminating Hidden Brilliance. Throughout the episode, listeners hear Tony Martignetti's perspective on why effective leadership goes far beyond titles, how founders can unlock the “hidden brilliance” within themselves and their teams, and why organizations thrive when they encourage multidimensional talents. Whether you’re a startup founder, part of a scaling team, or actively investing in early-stage ventures, this conversation is packed with actionable insights and fresh frameworks to help you foster truly resilient, inspired, and connected teams. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to create lasting impact, avoid the pitfalls of leadership “autopilot,” and bring their whole self into the entrepreneurial arena.
Have you ever stopped to wonder if you’re climbing the right mountain in your entrepreneurial journey, or simply chasing someone else’s vision of success? In this episode of The Angel Next Door Podcast, we dig deep into what it means to lead with purpose and authenticity, challenging common assumptions about leadership, fulfillment, and growth for founders and investors alike.
Our guest, Tony Martignetti, is an accomplished leadership coach, author, and founder of Inspired Purpose Partners. With over 30 years of experience in high-tech and biotech finance and strategy, Tony Martignetti made a bold leap from corporate life to become a transformational force for leaders across industries. He’s the author of two insightful books—Climbing the Right Mountain and Campfire Lessons for Leaders—and shares a preview of his upcoming work, Illuminating Hidden Brilliance.
Throughout the episode, listeners hear Tony Martignetti's perspective on why effective leadership goes far beyond titles, how founders can unlock the “hidden brilliance” within themselves and their teams, and why organizations thrive when they encourage multidimensional talents. Whether you’re a startup founder, part of a scaling team, or actively investing in early-stage ventures, this conversation is packed with actionable insights and fresh frameworks to help you foster truly resilient, inspired, and connected teams. This is a must-listen for anyone seeking to create lasting impact, avoid the pitfalls of leadership “autopilot,” and bring their whole self into the entrepreneurial arena.
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MARCIA DAWOOD
0:02
Well, Tony, welcome to the Angel Next Door podcast.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
0:05
Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about our conversation today.
MARCIA DAWOOD
0:09
I know your background is so interesting, and we talk to founders and investors on the show, and we have a lot going on with what we can do in order to help businesses grow and scale. And leadership is definitely one of them. And I know that's one of your. One of your many background expertise. So start off, tell our listeners a little bit about your background and how you got to where you are. Being a author of two books and having a company all focused on leadership.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
0:36
Yeah. And so thank you. First of all, before I get into the work I'm doing now, I spent many years working in high tech and then biotech, but particularly focused on finance and strategy work. So it's been 30 years in industry, and it was a wonderful journey, but then felt like there was something missing along the way. And so about eight years ago, I decided to take the big leap and left the corporate world and started my own endeavor, this company that's called Inspired Purpose Partners. And it wasn't an easy transition, that's for sure. It was. It came from this place of feeling like something was missing.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
1:15
And the exploration I went on was to figure out how to find, how to get leaders to show up differently in the rooms that I was in. And so that led to coaching, facilitation, writing books, podcasting the whole journey. And it has landed me in this place where I'm able to facilitate workshops with organizations and teams that want to show up differently, connect at a very personal level, especially exploring identity work about themselves and their teams.
MARCIA DAWOOD
1:48
That's super interesting. We do hear a lot about leadership. So tell us, how do you describe it and why leadership coaching is so important? Because I think some people think, oh, leadership, Yeah, I got this. I can be a leader. Right. I'm sure you probably hear that a lot, right?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
2:06
Yeah, it's a. It's interesting. I've been thinking about the term leadership malpractice lately, which is, oh, gosh, that's great. Yeah. I think there's an element of that, which is to say that everyone can. Anyone can call themselves a leader, and we all lead in some capacity. But the question is, how have you been taught to be a good leader? Effective leaders are different than just leaders by title or leaders just by. I'm going to be a leader.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
2:31
So I think when I. When I think of the term leader, I think the key thing is how do you serve others in a way that is lifting them up and revealing more of who they really are through the process of your presence. Makes sense.
MARCIA DAWOOD
2:47
Yes.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
2:48
Yeah. And one of the great analogies about leadership, and this is something I tap into. My new book, which is coming out soon, is about leaders, as. I'll share more about that in a moment. But Leaders as Lighthouses. And what I love about that analogy is a sense that it's not about just shining bright for the sake of being the brightest person in the room, but it's about leading the way for others. So that sense of being an example, but also illuminating others, creating that path for people to follow, but also shining a light on them.
MARCIA DAWOOD
3:24
Yeah, that's. I love that. Leaders as lighthouses, because you don't want a leader who thinks they're the smartest person in the room and that they're just gonna beat you. What's the saying? Beatings will continue until morale improves. You know, we don't want that. Right, right. We want things that are more really lifting people up, like you said, like giving people a place to really shine and know that their leader or the person who they're working for really has their back. I know that for me, personally, even I stayed at companies that I.
MARCIA DAWOOD
3:58
Maybe for better or worse, but I did because I was working for somebody I really liked, or I left because even if it was a good situation because I didn't like the person. So I feel like people leave people, not companies. Right. Yeah.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
4:11
I couldn't agree more. And that's one of the things that in the work that I do, I'm always thinking about, I don't have to fix everything from the top to the bottom, but what I can do is I can come in and work with people wherever they are and create a situation where that team becomes unavoidably seen. They do good work, and other people start looking at them and saying, I want what they're having. I want to have that effect that they're having by just creating a spark that is almost unavoidably seen. And it starts by creating a ripple effect wherever we come in and we're able to create an impact. It doesn't always have to come in the place. We always think the C Suite. And I think that's great.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
4:55
And obviously the most effective way to create change. But sometimes you start where you can and you make the effect wherever you. You're able to.
MARCIA DAWOOD
5:04
Right. And a lot of times it is the middle managers, especially when we're talking about big companies, that are the ones grooming the next group of leaders. And the Next group of. So if we don't have strong leadership there, then, you know, it's like the whole thing's gonna come crashing down.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
5:24
Yeah. And just even to use another analogy, which we always love these analogies, but if you're. If you just focus on one level of leadership, but the message doesn't trickle down, the challenge you have is that it's. It's almost like starving the. The seeds from getting sunlight. And so that's the analogy I always thinking about is, like, if you say you want to have the next level of leadership come to the. To. To be fostered and to grow them, but the problem is, oftentimes we don't do the work to actually trickle down the impact of some of the leadership programs that are offered.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
6:00
Yeah.
MARCIA DAWOOD
6:01
So you have. We'll soon talk about your new book, because I can't wait to hear about that. But you have two books. You're very good at titling, by the way. I really like the title. So Climbing the Right Mountain is. Hello, you want. As an author, I know.
MARCIA DAWOOD
6:14
You want a title where people will stop and say, wait a minute, yes, that's interesting. I need to know more about that. And then Campfire Lessons for Leaders. I love that, because anytime that we can go back to anything that we learned when we were, like, around a campfire or in kindergarten or whatever can be super helpful. Right. So tell us about those two books and how they've affected people in the world.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
6:36
Yeah. And I appreciate you asking, saying that. I. For me, the first book, Climb the Right Mountain, was basically about mountains, but not necessarily just about mountains. I climb mountains. So it's something that's near and dear to my heart. But the analogy that we're really working with here is that about defining success on our own terms. You start to climb the mountains of success, your professional career, and at time, from time to time, you need to check in and say, is this the mountain that I still want to climb? A lot of us get to the top of the mountain and feel like I got where I did all the work, I did all of the things that people said I should do, but I don't feel successful in that, in those terms.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
7:17
And so sometimes we have to pause along the way and say, okay, well, I said I wanted this, but why? And how do I stop for a moment, pause and take inventory of what I've done, why I'm doing it, and recommit or not to the mountain that I'm on? Yeah. So that was kind of the whole plan for that first book. And it really came out of not only my own stories, but also from the people I was talking to who were sharing lessons about their own journey and people who were telling me, yeah, I'm in this job, but I'm sticking around just because I get a paycheck and if I leave now, I'll leave a lot of money on the table. But I'm like, okay, that's great, but how do you feel about it?
MARCIA DAWOOD
8:01
Right. Yeah. I see too often that people, they're. They get into that hamster wheel, to use another analogy, and basically they're doing the same thing and they are moving forward. In many cases, they're either getting the promotion or getting the bonus or whatever. But is it really aligned with their values? Is it really making them happy? And I love the title about the Right Mountain because that does make so much sense. Because I've watched people, friends of mine, who ended up working in a job, never really liked it, but never really left it, didn't know how to change it, and they wake up one day and 20 years have passed.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
8:48
Yeah.
MARCIA DAWOOD
8:48
And it happens fast.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
8:51
It truly does. And I think about it, the whole, like, concept of being on autopilot. You're just going through the motions and you're stuck in this pattern of rinse, wash, and repeat. And that's. It's easy to get stuck in that because the. You're doing the work, you're just going about it and you just head down. But from time to time, we have to poke our heads up and ask questions. And I think it's healthy to do that.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
9:14
And it doesn't mean you're going to throw everything away. It just. Like I said, it's changing the rain, the frame of mind about what you're doing and why you're doing it. And that might be all you need, is to say, oh, I'm recommitted to this path because now I have recommitted to why I do it. And I've gotten out of the patterns I've been maybe stuck in. That got me feeling a little bit, like, blase about the job. Or it might be a time for a completely complete reset. Taking some of the things that I've learned in this current path and thinking, that's time for a new mountain.
MARCIA DAWOOD
9:49
Yeah. And in a lot of cases, sometimes that happens. That can happen in your 30s, your 40s, your 50s. It could happen at any time. There's so much happening right now with people starting businesses later in life or starting a franchise or buying a franchise or whatever. The story is. So there's. There's a lot of things that people can do that the word retirement isn't necessarily about sitting around a pool all day or golfing.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
10:17
Yeah. Just thinking about the longevity of our lives these days, thanks to science, we are living much longer. And think about the term of midlife. Chip Conley has been a huge advocate for thinking about how do we navigate midlife? And midlife has become such a long term. And we start midlife even earlier than we used to. 40 is now midlife. And. And then it extends really long.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
10:43
You know, you could call 60 Midlife.
MARCIA DAWOOD
10:46
Yeah, totally. Yep.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
10:48
So.
MARCIA DAWOOD
10:49
So, okay, tell us now about your second book. I love the title of that as well. Campfire Lessons for Leaders. So how. How'd you come up with all that?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
10:58
Yeah. So obviously campfires are a very important part of my youth, but it was also an element of telling stories about campfire that's been part of our origin story as humans. And there's something about the intimacy of those stories that have always connected to who I am and what I like. I started a podcast called the Virtual campfire back in 2020. It's now, it's still running a little slower than it used to be, but we're 300 some odd episodes deep. And the book is an encapsulation of some of the big themes that I uncovered through those conversations. And one of the through lines, I would say, about campfire is it's about connecting deeper to ourselves through our stories by looking back and uncovering what it is that has helped me to make sense of my life. And how can I use that exploration as a path to connecting with where I'm going to propel my future? And there's a lot of vulnerability in that, obviously, but it doesn't mean that it's supposed to be painful.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
12:03
It's supposed to be a force of reconciliation with our past so that we can understand it and then connect better with others through that.
MARCIA DAWOOD
12:13
So is the book really encouraging leaders then to tell stories within the. Within the. In workplace environment?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
12:21
It is, but it starts with understanding yourself first. And I think that's where you don't just run off and just start telling random stories or just telling un. Not internalized stories. The key thing is start with understanding yourself through the exploration. Spend time, slow things down, and really understand why did you get to this place where you're doing what you're doing? And I do this with what's called flashpoints. Flashpoints are the moments that have ignited your gifts into the world. And what we do is we try to think about what was my life before that moment, what did I learn through that moment, and how did that change my life afterwards? Sometimes they're dramatic, like maybe a cancer diagnosis, a suicidal moment that obviously we've been able to live through, which is wonderful. Or it could be something as simple as, look, I was doing this career, and it just.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
13:15
I got to this point where I was like, I just can't do it anymore, and I need to do something else.
MARCIA DAWOOD
13:20
All right, so tell us, what's book three all about?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
13:23
Yeah, you'd think that the book three would be something that is. Got the campfire or the outdoors theme. This one is about light. It's called Illuminating Hidden Brilliance. And there is a connection to my previous books, but the inspiration to this book came from. From a museum visit. I'm. Museums are my kind of my passion.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
13:43
I love museums. And I'm also an artist, so I spend time exploring art and. And doing art. And I happen to be walking in a museum locally to my house. And I walked into this one particular room, and there was this big black box hanging from the ceiling, and it was intricately carved with these beautiful designs. And then there's a light shine inside. When your light shines in, the pattern just. It just covers everything.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
14:11
The walls, the ceiling, your skin. And it just was this beautiful experience that had me thinking that most of us are just like that, the black box. And until someone turns on that light or finds that hidden element that's inside of us, we're not expressing the full spectrum of who we are. But once we do, something beautiful happens.
MARCIA DAWOOD
14:36
Yeah.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
14:37
And so that. That light bulb moment, no pun intended, really changed the way I looked at the people I was working with and even myself. When we bring that hidden sideline element of who we are back into the room, whether it's the artist, the dancer, or even, like, parts of our story, like immigrant being an immigrant or someone who started in a different world, then integrating it back into who we are and showing up that way in our work, you start to see things differently, and you become fully expressed. Now, I started to do this with teams, and I found that it's not just about the identity work of finding your identities, integrating them and expressing them, but it's also about connecting with others and helping them to see the value of that expression. So that's what Illuminating Hidden Brilliance is about. Bringing the sideline part of yourself back into the room to feel more fulfilled and to connect better with others.
MARCIA DAWOOD
15:40
Amazing. So it sounds like an incredible Book for some exercises.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
15:45
Totally. And it's very much an action orientated book. And so you'll find as you're navigating, you're discovering about yourself. You're also finding ways to really put it into action to apply what you're learning.
MARCIA DAWOOD
16:00
I love that. And when does it come out?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
16:02
In the fall. So it could be a little bit earlier, but right now we're slated for a fall release. It is written, just needs to be put into production.
MARCIA DAWOOD
16:11
Right, right. Yes, I know. I. My most recent book that came out, I finished writing it in August. But gotta go through all the things. There's all the steps. People don't realize how long it takes even after it's written, that you have to. All the things you have to do.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
16:27
Yeah.
MARCIA DAWOOD
16:28
So in our correspondence before we did the episode you were talking about, brilliance doesn't disappear in organizations. It goes dormant when people are asked to fragment themselves to perform. And I was just so I had to sit and think about that for a little bit. I'm like, that is such a profound statement because it is true we have been asked to fragment ourselves. But I don't know that I ever thought of it in that context. So please explain.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
16:59
Yeah, and it really aligns with what I was just sharing. But I'll go a little deeper because that fragmentation comes from the sense that we often think of a reward system in an organization. Is reward based on the title? You think about the job description. You say, okay, for me to be successful, I have to be aligned with what the job description says and my title. So let's just use finance as an example. Because that was my prior life, I was in finance. So I have to be analytical. I have to be all the things that a finance person typically would be seen as wherever.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
17:35
If you want to be fully seen and to be not fragmented, as just, okay, I'm going to show up and just be this side of myself. Then you can see where are you leaving parts of yourself on the sidelines. Maybe it's the finance person who is a really good storyteller or is able to see things that could also bleed into another area. I was in finance, but I was also in biotech. And I spent a lot of time understanding how the biotech landscape worked. And because of my insights in the industry and my connections industry, I started to get involved in business development and that started to become more of my area of expertise as well. But it could be anything. So I think the fragmentation becomes being defined so narrowly in one dimensional terms, it can be limiting and also frustrating for a person to feel that way.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
18:31
But as soon as you start to work in organization and start to express that you have more to give than one dimension, it becomes liberating and it also becomes really a sense of aliveness. It comes back to the table. Make sense?
MARCIA DAWOOD
18:45
Yes. I love that. I worked for a company for a long time and I. I did get labeled in the first role that I had. I was in sales and so sales and marketing. So I got labeled like that, even though I was like, no, I can do all these other things. Look what I can do in operations. And I was like, I ended up becoming the person who, I don't know, they called me the fixer.
MARCIA DAWOOD
19:08
If it was something like a really messy problem, like, just call Marcia. She's the person who will figure it out. But it took a long time for people to start to see me in a different light. It's not their fault. It's just the way things happen because you get to your point, you get narrowly focused into whatever your job title is, whatever you're supposed to be working on, and in a lot of cases, your metrics and your job performance is based on that. So if you are branching out, that might not be looked upon that favorably either, but it could be that you could add a lot more to the organization.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
19:44
Exactly. And not only is that good for. For the employee to feel the sense of attachment is probably a strong word, but a sense of connection to the organization because the organization start to see them as, yeah, this person has more in the tank than they're offering. And they don't have to work harder to do it because they're already feeling the sense of energy that comes from. They're seeing me for not just this one thing, but other things. And they're taking risks on me to be able to explore this other part of me, which is wonderful. And I think that's the other part of this, that organizations have to believe in their people before they're in some new areas or new trying new things. That belief is what really gets people to step up and try new things.
MARCIA DAWOOD
20:28
Yes. So I know a lot of the people that are listening are either investors in a startup or founders in a startup. So how would you coach a leader who's in a startup? Maybe it's the founder and CEO, but maybe it's other people who. And maybe they don't have that many employees. Maybe they only have five or 10 employees. Like, what are some of your tips and tricks?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
20:50
Well, it starts with getting to know your people a Little deeper. And this doesn't mean you have to be personally invested in every single aspect of their lives, but it's just spending a little more time understanding what makes them come alive. Yeah. And this is where a lot of the exploration starts with me, is getting them out of their head and into more of the personal exploration of things they do outside of work or things they've done in the past and things that become part of the outside self, bringing them a little bit inside and allowing them to just get to know that. Because as you said, the fixer. Right. That's something that's. That's not a job title, that actually is an identity.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
21:29
And in many ways that's like, cool, because then you can start to say, well, as the fixer, that doesn't mean I have to be limited to one area. And they may look at you as saying, hey, we've got this really hairy problem that we need to fix. Would love to have you come be part of it. At least have a voice in the room for it. What do you think? And that becomes an open door. And especially when it comes to the founders and smaller organizations, they don't have a wealth of people who are going to be able to do very siloed roles. If they can find some utility players that have a broad, what I call multi dimensional ways of seeing things, that's even better.
MARCIA DAWOOD
22:07
Yeah, I love how you talk about that. Multidimensional. Yeah. So tell us a little more about that.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
22:14
Yeah, Multidimensional, for me, is it just this idea that we, especially in the world that we're in right now, where AI becomes like a really good specialist? And I'm not saying that specialists are bad, but we have to be able to have a width and a depth. And so that's where we're headed in this world that we're in, is that we want to make sure that people have more dimensions than just the one dimension. And going super deep, what we should be able to do is have multiple dimensions that we can work across and also have the ability to go deep when we need to in certain areas. That doesn't mean we have to be the master of all. It just means we have to have the depth enough to be able to get into areas and see how certain things can go across different dimensions. Meaning maybe you're somebody who has a depth in storytelling, but you're also somebody who can really understand data and an analysis. And that's wonderful because we do need those cross pollinations.
MARCIA DAWOOD
23:13
Totally. Yeah. We hear about AI. Oh, they're going to take all these jobs. But I actually think the work that you're doing with multi dimensional leadership, talking to people about finding their own strengths and then being able to lift up others, those are things that we need now more than ever.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
23:31
I agree. Yeah, I agree. It's the part that is most important for humans being good meaning makers and synthesizers and to take the term that I like to use, integrators. We integrate all the things that we're taking in by utilizing what we see in the world and what AI can help us with. But we can integrate them by making sense of all the things we see.
MARCIA DAWOOD
23:56
Yeah, I love that. Well, Tony, we're going to put links to the books and to your, your website in the show notes. But how else? Like how do people mainly work with you?
TONY MARTIGNETTI
24:09
Well, the best way to, to reach out to me and what have you is, is to find me on my website, my new website. Actually I've got a new website called tonymspeaks.com. it's the central point where you can dig deep, find out more about my workshops, my, my thought leadership and what have you. And then the other place that I'm really active is LinkedIn. I post there regularly. I'm always sharing insights and tips and things like that. So feel free to check me out.
MARCIA DAWOOD
24:35
That's great. Well, thanks so much for joining us today, Tony. Appreciate it.
TONY MARTIGNETTI
24:39
Likewise. Thank you so much for a wonderful conversation.
MARCIA DAWOOD
24:44
Great.