02. Leadership: Mindful Leadership Influence

Hey, welcome back, my friend, to leadership in a nutshell, where we're cracking the code of the driven mind. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman, and I am super excited to be back with you here today for episode number two, where we're going to be diving into mindful leadership. Now, don't think, oh, Kenny's gone off the deep end and he's become a Buddhist monk and he's going to talk about mindfulness and all that. However, I will challenge you that we definitely have some limiting beliefs in Western civilization around leadership and the driven mind and how those two interact as far as effectiveness, as far as impact, as far as influence and really how we can make a difference. So, you know, today's about awareness, conscious choice, and how we really drive into an abundance mindset with this driven mind that we've all been gifted with. And, and so I just want to jump right into it and we think about, okay, so mindful leadership, you know, why is this so important, Kenny? Well, let's just remember in episode one when we talked about the driven mind and stress levels and, you know, if we think about different stress levels and sure, we talked about the three categories of stress, if you will, but today, think about when things go unchecked, if I don't get mindful about my leadership and how I'm influencing, how I'm impacting, how I'm speaking to, how I'm coaching, how I'm training, the different ways that I communicate with my team, I will increase stress levels. There will be pain created, There will be drama, there will be trauma, there will be ego that's completely unnecessary and sometimes runs rampant. There'll be a competitive type culture that comes into play. Now, a competitive culture can be a good thing as long as it's managed and created intentionally when we go about those things. And that's the whole tie to mindful leadership. It's about having intention with what we do. So let's get really clear about something, too. When we think about leadership itself, being a leader is not the same as acting as one. Be very clear about that. Being a leader is not the same as acting one. Acting as one, I should say. And calling yourself a leader is not the same as being one. What does that mean? Many of us ended up in leadership roles because it was the next step on our path. It was the next rung on the ladder. Ladder. It was the next promotion, if you will. And I think about back to my military days, and one of the reasons I became an entrepreneur is because the military taught me about time and grade promotion, meaning if I'm in a specific job for x amount of time, then I'm available to be promoted and move up into the next level and the next opportunity. And that just makes no sense for me. And so it taught me I needed to get paid for my performance. I needed to be able to become better in order to lead better. And so I want you to just keep that in mind as we're kind of diving in today. And so when we think about the core of mindful leadership, as I mentioned in the opening, it's about awareness. It's about conscious choice. And so how do we become more aware? You know, there's three things that we want to begin to really be mindful of and pay attention to, and that is what am I thinking about? Where's my thinking going? How am I thinking? What am I speaking about? And how am I speaking? What types of words am I using? What's the inflection? Where's that showing up? And how I think and how I speak will show up in my actions and how I act. And so I'm going to tie back to a call to action for you at the end of this episode when we really get aware of how that looks and what I want to focus on. And so with a great book, Don Miguel Ruiz wrote a great book called the four agreements that I'm a huge fan of. I have my leadership teams read it in every company that I've ever owned or led. And I think it's a powerful, basically, process, because one of the things. The only thing I'll share here today about it is one of the agreements is to be impeccable with your word, meaning don't gossip, meaning speak your truth. And when we start realizing how I think, how I speak turns into actions, sometimes I can be out of alignment. There can be a little disconnect in congruency. Okay, now you go. Okay, fine, Kenny. But we agreed. We've got these driven minds, and we're running nonstop, and my mind's going, going, going, thinking, thinking, thinking, what? Next, next, next. So how do I slow that down? Now, I'm not a trained therapist. I do a lot of breakthrough work with people. I help people get out of their own way and into their greatness. All those types of things. I. But one of the areas that one of my coaches really helped me with is a technique that's. Or a philosophy, a type of therapy, if you will, called cognitive behavior therapy. And again, I'm not a licensed therapist. I'm not here to tell you that I am or that I have everything all figured out here. But I do want to share a strategy of a simple way to catch yourself and be aware. So it goes a little something like this. You have a rubber band, or many people have these little wristbands that they're wearing. Sometimes they're branded. They've got them for breast cancer, They've got them for. Different companies have them, different things like that. But it can be as simple as a rubber band on your wrist. And there's three steps to this kind of form of cbt, or cognitive behavior therapy. And the first step is to catch yourself. To become mindful is to become aware. And to become aware, I've got to catch myself in the moment of what I'm doing. The second step is we go, okay, now I'm here. Now I want to stop that. I want to cancel what I'm thinking about or what I'm saying to myself, and then I want to free myself up. And so I want you to just picture that you have a rubber band on your wrist, and you think a negative thought about somebody. Let's say somebody on your team disappoints you. Let's say a salesperson doesn't close the deal, and they're telling you what happened, and you just get frustrated, and you're like, what on earth are they? What were they thinking? Why did they handle that that way? Why did they implement the old school sales process? Why didn't they do what I taught them this week, all those different things? Am I hitting a nerve? I know I am. And so when you think about that frustration, that here's something that can come to mind. What an idiot. God, what were they thinking? As soon as that happens, boom. You snap the band. Snap the band. What it does is it creates a physiological change that connects to your brain. So immediately, if I'm thinking something, I'm frustrated with my wife. How can she always does that? She's a nag. Boom. Snap the band. Immediately ground yourself. You catch yourself in that moment. Then you follow it up with saying out loud, cancel that thought, man, what a stupid person. Boom. You snap yourself. Cancel that thought. Step three, I am free. And you get back to being the person that you want to be. You get back to a mindset of being aware and choosing the thoughts, the actions, and how you speak in a manner that you want to do. Now, of course, we could do a whole full episode on just this topic, but I think it's important that as we work together further into leadership In a nutshell. And we're diving into the driven mind a little bit further. It's important that we catch ourselves. We cancel the negative thought or the negative feeling that we're having and then set ourselves free. So there's a three step process that you can implement. Okay, now as we think about mindful leadership, I want you to think about the three categories that leaders fall into. Number one, they are conscious and they're very aware and clear and they're utilizing the techniques like what I'm talking about here today. The second category is unconscious leaders. And many of us have had leaders like this where they don't even realize what they don't, you know, they don't know what they don't know. They're not aware of what's going on and how they're impacting or influencing their team. Many of us have learned a lot of really big lessons of what not to do from unconscious leaders in our life. And then there's a third category that a lot of people don't talk about and that is the anti conscious leader. So that's the person that's literally stirring the pot, literally creating drama, literally pitting team members against team members. So we've got conscious, we've got unconscious, and then we've got anti conscious. And you think about how those plan, you know, how those play out. The conscious leader, well planned out, they respond rather than reacting. They take a moment, they gather their thoughts, they catch themselves, they're aware, unconscious, a lot of scarcity based mindset. They're in reaction mode all the time. They don't have all the information, they're just doing, reacting, going, reacting, doing a lot of things and then getting a specific result based on unconsciously going through their world. And then we go to anti conscious. And those are the people that you just swear, get up in the morning and just want to wreck people's day and want to create conflict and create challenge and different issues and strategies. I'm not here to tell you which category to choose, but I am here to tell you it's up to you to decide which category you are in. So as we move forward, I want you to have a little call to action. Here's your homework. I want you to think about how do you get more conscious? What are the questions? What am I thinking? What am I speaking? How am I speaking? And then what are my actions? How are my actions showing up if I need that, you know, just wear a rubber band for a week or so and snap that on your wrist if you have a negative thought. If you have a negative feeling. If you say something that is out of congruency with who you are, who you want to be, how you want to lead. Snap that band. Get your awareness back, okay? Utilize those techniques and make sure you continue to just step forward. This is an evolution process. You don't just wake up one day and go, man, I'm now a mindful leader. Everything that I think about is all completely incongruency. It takes time. Be easy with yourself, my friend. It's a process for a reason. Do us a favor, subscribe here. Make sure you rate review. I hope you're having a great time. I know I'm enjoying this. Thank you so much for being with us here today as we discuss mindful leadership. This is leadership in a nutshell. Cracking the code of the driven mind. And I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Until we talk, make it a better than fantast. Sam.