107. Responsible Growth

Foreign Kenny Chapman here, your host of leadership in a nutshell. Yep. Cracking that code of the driven mind. We've been blessed with it, my friend. I'm super, super honored to have you here for episode 107, responsible growth. And sometimes those two words don't necessarily go together and my gosh, have we seen that through the pandemic and the, the massive AM capital that just have been flowing into our industry and acquisition and you know, roll ups and all kinds of different stuff. I want to just have you take a moment and step back and really just honor your own truth when it comes to what's responsible growth look like for you. And so today we're just going to take a little walk together and think about what does that mean? You know, so there's, you know, I think about different, you know, thoughts and things that are out there. I, I was recently watching some of the, the we crashed series on Apple TV about the, how we work was built and, and the different things and like, you know, like oh, you got to be crazy to grow and you got to do all these other things and you got to do, you know, it's like there's all these things out there and when you look on social media and who's doing what and who's driving what and who's growing what and all these different things and then your comparison mindset in and wants to start telling you you're not doing enough and you're not enough and you're not validated and your ego gets involved and kicks your own butt and then your self esteem goes down and these are all walks that I've had and I have chosen to free myself from all of that nonsense and I say nonsense in a very loving way because everybody's out here just doing the best that we all can and I have done very well for the way the world thinks I should operate when I have been very driven and you know, just in a massive accumulation mode and all these different types of things. And I know that you know, now in hindsight as I look back I'm, I'm in my early 50s now and I, I look back on my career of you know, I'm coming up on 30 years of being an entrepreneur and, and all the different things that I did and how I grew and you know, I'd make acquisitions and, and I, I've just landed on a place where I just want what I feel is responsible growth and, and I growth massively. Now when I say that that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to grow my companies massively, all at one time. I believe there's seasons. I believe that sometimes you go through a period of winter where things are a little dormant and you're kind of reflective and sometimes maybe even a little bit of a dark time. And then you kind of come out of that with some lessons and it's almost like a springtime. And you, you start, you know, seeing the sun a little bit brighter and the wind's blowing a little bit and moving the seeds around and some different things are going. And then summer hits. In your, in your business cycle of your own growth, I'm not talking about H Vac gets busy because summer's here. I'm talking about just your own growth cycle where, man, you make hay while the sun's shining and you start growing and you're doing an acquisition or you're adding line extensions to your company or whatever, and, and then fall kind of comes and you've had that and you, you went through a phase. And I'm speaking from my own. You know, I love deals. I absolutely love business deals, whether they're real estate, whether they're acquisition. You know, I've been very blessed by being involved personally and in many acquisitions, both of my own accord, and then helping and assisting clients through both buying and selling. And so I, you know, I love that part of the deal. But I also, I love the life that I've built, and I love that my businesses and my tasks that I do are all a part of my life as a bigger thing. And because of that, I want to grow and I want to grow my own consciousness, and I want to grow consciousness in those around me. And that, for me, is my number one responsibility and growth. If I'm not growing consciousness in myself and others, then it's irresponsible growth for me. This is just how I define it. And that's the first thing that I want you to think about is how do you define it for yourself? If I say, what does responsible growth mean to you? If you're taking notes, write that down. If not, come back and listen to this episode and take some notes. So just take a moment and jot that down and write that, because it might be, you know, I've got clients that it's, oh, a 10% growth or a 20% growth. Others are, you know, if I'm not doubling every year, then I'm not doing something right or whatever that is. Notice mine. I, I don't even put an identification of a number on it because after almost 30 years in business. That's not what's important to me. Yes, there. It's important to grow. It's important to grow because, yes, you're either. You know, the old adages of you're either growing or you're. Or you're dying. But I'll remind you, you're dying, period. We're all dying right now. As we sit here having this moment in time, we're all dying. And that's to be afraid of. You're like, damn, Kenny. I thought this was a motivational. A motivational series. If this is your first episode, by the way. By the way. Don't, don't. Don't cut us off. Stick with us. I swear I'm not a doom and gloom because that's. You know, that there's no such thing as doom and gloom. When I talk about death, I'm just talking about freedom. Because if we're all going to die someday, then why aren't we just living the absolute life of our dreams right now, every moment of every day, enjoying it? Like, that's what I think about. And so, you know, for me, I don't really care about growth other than I've got to grow business so I have more team members because I care about people and I want my tribe to increase. I've got to grow business because that creates complexities and challenges and mistakes and issues and different things happen. And that's where we elevate consciousness. That's where we learn and we solve what the world calls problems and all those different. That's where I'm committed to grow. So for me, that's what it is. What is it for you? And it's okay if it's tied to numbers, if it's tied to, you know, your marriage. You know, you can set these in different relationship categories, different financial categories, but I just want you to think about that because the world has a way of shoving in your face stock ticker prices and, oh, maybe we're going to head into a recession now, so the world's going to suck and you're not valued as a human being because your business slowed down. Like, whatever it is. Define responsible growth. Is it dollars? Is it percentages? Is it team? How about how. What percentage of time you. You have to commit to the business or you choose to commit to the business. When I talk about seasons, I go through seasons in my own development. And, you know, I am very blessed with an incredible team at blue collar where I don't, quote, have to work in the daily operation. I'VE got phenomenal leaders that and phenomenal team. It's not just the leaders. Like we're, we're very blessed all the way through everybody in our organization. Where I focus in unique ability and I focus on what my passion projects are. And I might go through a period where, you know, I just released the blue collar leadership laws and I as I went through that book project and wrote that book and went through all and worked with a publisher and all the editing and all the different. That, that's, that's a lot of work. It's not the, in the day to day operations of the work, but it's a season and when I get out of that season, I want to breathe a little bit and I want to see I don't have to start writing my next book right away. I do already have a title and I know what I'm going to write next. But that's not because I'm not trying to feed my ego or validate to you that I'm worthy of, of you listening to me because I'm always driven and I'm always going no, because you know how much time you work in the business could be tied to your level of responsible growth, your peace of mind. How about that? Some people might tie peace of mind. We've got clients at blue collar that run, you know, three, four or $5 million companies because they see them as easy to run and they're not. For me, I ran a 3 to 4 million dollars company in a small market when I was in the service business, I coached 50 million plus dollar companies back when 50 was big. Right. Like back when some of the largest companies in the country were only 50 million. Right. But back then, you know, here I, I'm coaching companies that are 20 times my size. And I used to struggle with that like, well, I don't know. I'm. I'm asking the right questions. I know how to run this business. Whether it's a 3 million or it's 300 million. I know how to help people accomplish what they want if that's their goal. For me, I went to two locations and then I decided I didn't want to grow additional locations. It wasn't where my passion was and I wanted to have peace of mind. And that's, that's where I ended up deciding the land. And, and as then I obviously needed more to do and wanted more of a passion project. So I launched blue collar and the rest is history, as they say. And the rest is evolution, as I'll say, because we're continuing to evolve. And then what about happiness? When you think about responsible growth? What if you're growing your business but you're not growing your happiness? That sounds like failure to me. If you're adding zeros and you're adding dollars and you're adding cents and you're adding Bitcoin to your portfolio, possibly. But you're not happy, my friend. What is that all about? Like, isn't that the whole reason that you're growing? You know, if you're in a leadership role, you're in that role in order to grow yourself and in order to learn more. And if you're learning and growing, then let's choose to be happy. Not conditionally. Let's choose to be happy no matter what. So, you know, pick your, pick your category and, and decide, you know, where do you want to grow? Like, is it your, is it your company? Is it relationships? Really? Those are three key areas that I want you to think about. So write those down. Myself, my company, or my external relationships. And when I say external relationships, that could be even my relationship with money, that could be my relationship with others. And so when I think about how I'm growing, you know, what does this look like? And ultimately, when I think about responsible growth, what, what is your end game? See, so I, I'm not driven to, to hit a certain number and exit. Like, I don't have an exit strategy per se, as far as, like, you know, I'm going to hit this number or this age or this whatever, you know, my end game is I'm going to influence 100 million people by the time I turn 65 years old. That's one of my end games. And when I'm 65, I'll still have, let's see, what's the math? I'm gonna live to be 146. So whatever the math is on that, I got a long time to go, let's say. So it's not even an end game, but it's an immediate end game. So a lot of people, you know, and you might be in one in a row where you're, you're trying to scale up so you can, you can get sold and get a big multiple, whatever that is, that's fine, but that's not my end game. That's not my goal. I'm not looking to sell blue collar. I'm looking to continue to grow our, our influence and, and, and have my amazing team continue to grow and evolve. So that's a different game from my own responsible Growth. So when I think about you and I think about, you know, where to think and where to look, just look at that self, company, relationships and your own levels of consciousness. How do you want to focus on that? These things changed everything for me when I stopped looking at, you know. Yes. For goals. Yes. I need to decide what I want, how do I want that to look, how do I want that to feel? Because ultimately, when you think about growth, you're looking for a feeling. And I want a feeling of winning and happiness and peace of mind. And winning to me could be when the world says I'm losing, but I'm winning because I'm learning. And if I'm learning and I don't get caught up in the emotion of the event, then I'm choosing happiness and peace of mind. And that's where I just encourage you to kind of redefine this. And look at this. You could have 10% growth, you could have 0% growth. You could go backwards if there's a recession or on the, you know, coming up perhaps, or a little pullback. You might go backward in top line growth, but grow profitability. You may any of these things. You might, you know, go backwards in profitability and grow your capability, grow your team, whatever that looks like. Decide what it is for you. Get off this hamster wheel of social media and everybody on the planet that knows what's best for you and how you should be, put that in freaking air quotes. And you can write fricking air quotes if you want because you know what you should be doing has nothing to do with your happiness. What do you want to do? What do you want? Because you want it. And that is enough justification. You're good enough, you're smart enough, you're strong enough, you're willing enough, you're committed enough. And you're right here with me having a great chat on a random weekday, perhaps, maybe it's a Sunday. Whatever it is for you, you're choosing growth. Make sure you're choosing responsible growth, my friend. Do me a favor, kick this to somebody as we grow this, you know, our, our little community here of just 10, 15 minutes a week, just taking a moment out and thinking about your thinking because you got a driven mind. And slow it down. Think about responsible growth. Share this with somebody like us, rate us, review us, whatever the platform has for you until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you next time. Thank you.