136. Future Self Failure Today

Foreign. Welcome back to the show. Kenny Chapman here, your host. I am honored, I am grateful, I am blessed that you're spending a few minutes with me this week. Episode 136 entitled Future Self failure today. And you go, dang, man, I don't want to talk about failure. Well, we're going to talk a whole hell of a lot about success. Success today, my friend, and in the form of allowing your future self to fail today. And I, I recently read a book by the great author Ben Hardy and I've shared some of his books in the past with you. And I, I read a great book called how to be your future self now that Ben wrote, he co authors a lot of books with my mentor Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. And so I, I generally take a look at Ben's latest work and I, I read that book earlier this summer when I was on the, the long road trip with the lovely Christie. And I, I, I've just allowed it to resonate and I wanted to share some thoughts with you that I kind of took away from the book and, and kind of packaged together. The point of this podcast is to get together with you and share some thoughts that might resonate with you, might remind you of something you already know, and give you a chance to take 15, 20 minutes out of your day and go, okay, cool, let's, let's kind of explore that. Let's rock on that. So that's what we're here to do. And you know, back, I don't know, several weeks back, I, I recorded episode 127 was about failure or success, you choose. And we talked there about, you know, different perspective and what that looks like. And I followed that up in episode 128 about are you committed to lesser goals? And I, and I want you to kind of maybe even go back and revisit those episodes after you listen today and just kind of be mindful of that. We're, we're in this, this human experience to continue to learn and continue to grow. And that's why last week I, I talked about the more model and, and why we continue. And I want you to be easy with yourself. Not only be easy with yourself, I want you to, to be highly engaged in self, care for yourself. Take that to another level and it might make some of you uncomfortable, which I'm 100% okay with, and get to a point of self love where you actually love yourself more than you ever have because that's where you step into your next level of greatness and fill your coffers to be able to take care of those around you that you love. It's. It's about putting yourself alongside. And we struggle with, you know, putting ourselves first. And because that sounds like I'm. If I'm going to put myself first, then I'm putting the lovely Christie back in the distance. I'm placing myself alongside equally as important. And I've got to feed myself first if I'm going to be able to feed her, if I'm going to be able to feed you, if I'm going to be able to feed my tribe, if I'm going to be able to feed my members at the blue collar success group. That's what it's all about. And so today, I want you to think about how you fail, and there's these concepts and thoughts around failing forward and. And what that looks like. And in Ben, in Ben's book, he talks about some of these types of things, and I just want to capture some nuggets that came from him. So I'll give him credit for, let's say, everything I talk about in this episode, whether I directly quote him or just some thoughts that I have from some of this because I read a book and then, you know, it's been a long time since I read that book, or months, I should say, and I don't remember what exactly came from it. It's just my own thoughts. But he definitely was able to spark some thoughts for me. I would encourage you to check out the book if you want. So one of the things that he reminded us of is that we spend so much time thinking about the future, and the brain is hardwired to think about the future. Right. And so that's one of the reasons that it's difficult to remain present, to stay in the present moment. And we know that the present moment is the only thing we have. It's the only place we can be happy. It's the only place we can build businesses. It's the only time we can implement anything in the company. It's the only time we can make an impact in our lives is right now, in the present moment. But the brain is wired to jump forward. And some studies say that we spend up to 66% of our time thinking about the future. Think about that like two thirds of our time. And check yourself right now, like, for yourself. How much time do you spend thinking about the future? You know, as driven, you know, you're listening to. To leadership in a nutshell, most likely because you do see yourself as a leader, whether you have a leadership title at work or in the business is irrelevant to me. What matters is that you are a leader in society. You're leading somebody. The great Les Brown. When I, when I was traveling with Les Brown, doing keynote speeches all over the country, he. He said, when two people go for a walk, somebody sets the pace. And remember that you're a leader, my friend. And so as a leader, it's even more so where we think about where we're going. What are we going to do, what's next? That's why I talked about the more model last week. And so one of the things that is interesting is that research is beginning to show that the future is pulling us forward more than the past is holding us back. Right. So let me share just, just inside Kenny's mind. I spent a good chunk of my life not thinking that my past created any trauma. Not thinking that the way I was raised, the issues, the divorces, my parents were married. Eleven times between them, I just decided, ah, that none of that stuff matters. It didn't impact me when my father's murdered. Nope, I'm good. Didn't impact me. You know, I, I kind of just allowed my ego to just try to bury that stuff. And now all of us do it. You've done it, I've done it. Everybody listening, we, we all do those types of things. And so then I went through a phase in my life and I was like, okay, it's time. I gotta unpack some of this and, and release it. And the fact is, releasing childhood trauma or trauma in your life at all is simply kind of like taking out the trash and releasing it. But it's gotta go in the bin and the garbage truck has to come and pick it up and take it away. You can't just throw it out back and leave it in the backyard. And that's what a lot of us do it or, or some of us just try to bury it. And it's there and it's gonna fester and it's gonna get rotten and it's gonna get nasty and event up. And that's what happened in my life. And that's where my addiction issues came from. And that's where the challenges are, you know, surfaced. And that's why I've been able to move forward from those because I did the work and I released them. Now what's interesting is the research is starting to say that what I want in the future is more compelling than what happened to me in the past. Now, meaning now. Don't get me Wrong. You've got to deal with your past and release it. And once you release it though, you're able to release any also level of victim mentality. And I would say this is what the study is starting to show, is that when I release anything as a victim, where this happened to me instead of for me, which I've, I've talked about on this show before, around my, my, my late, amazing buddy Sean Stevenson, that changed my life for ever. I believe that he was an angel that was sent here to change my life. Specifically. I know, Sean, I know you're up there going, I changed millions of lives, brother, I know you did. But I believe you were sent here for me. Maybe that's selfish, maybe that's my ego, but I'm so grateful I had the short period of time we had in this life together. And Sean said on his deathbed, this is happening for me, not to me. And I want you to remember that. And I don't care that I've said that before, I'll probably say it in three more episodes again because it's so frickin powerful. And I want you to remember that everything is happening for you. It's not happening to you. And when you do that, when you embrace that, when you start to actually believe it, you have a new relationship with the universe. You have a new relationship with obstacles, with struggles, with challenges, with economy, as the economy softens as I'm recording this by the day, as buyer confidence wanes, as whatever this economic downturn is that we're headed into, whatever that looks like. And remember, you happen to the market, the market doesn't happen to you. You don't have to go deep or dark in this time. I'm just saying that everything is happening for you. And, and when you realize that you get the gold, you get the value, you get the gift. And so, you know, one of the things that, that Ben talks about in the book where we, you know, I, I'm talking today that let's fail as our future self now, meaning that I'm going to do something today that I think I have to wait until I become a certain way, when I'm a certain level of business for me, when I, when I'm a certain, at a certain level of an author or I've sold a certain amount of books or what, whatever that is. Which by the way, if you, I didn't even think I was going to say this today, but since I'm talking about my book, if you don't have it yet, blue collar success laws go to blue collarlaws.com and I'll send you a free copy. Just cover the Shipp blue collar laws.com and so but I, I might think, well, I've got another book brewing in me now, but I have to have this result. What? No. I'm going to continue to fail as my future self today because that's better than not. And thinking I'm going to wait until all of these boxes are checked and the eyes are dot dotted and the t's are crossed and then I'm going to take action because the world is going to hand you some feedback no matter what. And what keeps us stuck are those urgent battles, the things that I've got to fight it today. We see it in business all the time at the Blue Collar success group, all my, all my coaches. Every time we, we run a scale up session for our growth membership or, or our freedom membership, whatever the level is. And people go, oh man, I just, I don't have time, I don't even have time to jump on the weekly call. Kenny. Well, that's because you're fighting urgent battles and that keeps you stuck. You can't fail as your future self because you're failing as your current self by not delegating, by not leaning into it. And please understand, I'm saying this with love. I'm not kicking your butt. I don't want you to kick your own butt. I want you to have awareness. Part of why I record this podcast in the format that I do is just to give you some things to think about. Right? So urgent battles, small goals keep you stuck too. That's, that's why I talked about, and I just referenced it in episode 128. Are you committed to lesser goals? Those keep you stuck because you're here for greatness, my friend. You're here to do incredible things in the world. And when you don't step into that greatness, you create pain for yourself. So be mindful of that. And when you create pain for yourself, you then intrinsically create pain for others. So be aware of, where am I fighting urgent battles? Where am I maybe, you know, committed to smaller goals? Go back and listen to episode 128 if you, if you haven't, or, or that resonates with you at all. And, and you know, when I, when I talk about like fail is your future self today, what I mean is just stop trying to perfect it. Get in the game, get in the ring, get in the arena. That's where it happens, you know, in Steven Pressfield's great book the War of Art, he talks about that, that creators and people that change the world were terrified. I don't know, I don't know if you like this podcast or not. I hope you do. If you do, by the way, give me a review or like, share it with somebody. But the fact is, you know, we're 136 episodes in. And yes, while the podcast does grow, I, I'm not like, I'm not a Joe Rogan style podcast. I don't have millions of listeners and so I can go, oh my gosh, you know, I don't have this all figured out yet. Guess what? I'm going to continue to learn. And every time I talk about having guests on, I have other people go. There's plenty of shows with guests, Kenny, and a lot of them pass around the same guests. Especially in the industry. We want to hear from you. We want to hear your truth. And so I'm working through it. I'm trying to decide different format and if I want to stick with this one. And as of today, this is what you get, baby. So you know, when, when we look at it, what I want you to do is stop trying to perfect it and get in the game. This podcast isn't perfect, but I'm in the game and I'm doing it. So the same is true for you in your business. You're doing it. And so what happens is fear of the unknown keeps you stuck. And fear is just unknown. Like generally that's what it is. Because when I say, well, I'm afraid of this, I'm afraid of this happening, I'm afraid of this result, it's simply because I don't have the experience yet. And what I'm encouraging you today is to get in the game and go fail, if that's what it is. Put that in air quotes. Cause I don't believe in failure. But get out there and maybe get a result that's not your ideal. Because now you have Universe feedback. The, the market votes with their checkbook. When you, when you roll out a new training program, when you roll out a new process, when you try a new sales system, whatever that is, or sales process, hopefully you're utilizing the blue collar selling system. But when you tweak your process a little bit and you get feedback, that's what it's all about. But we're afraid of doing something we've never done, that's natural, that's a good positive part of the brain. But we have to do it if we're going to grow. We're designed for that. We live in a world that, that now we don't get up and wonder where our next meal is going to come from, most of us. And we don't have to go try to slay a woolly mammoth or whatever to feed our family tonight, though sometimes our business challenges feel that way. I get that, and I'm not minimizing that. But the main thing about fear is it's simply unknown because I haven't done it. What I'm encouraging you is to go do it. And you know, there's all these cliches and quotes and different things around. Anything, anything worthwhile is worth doing badly at first. And I agree with that. I don't know who said it, so I'll just say whoever said that, I'll give them credit. But, you know, it's one of those things of whatever is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. Because you've got to learn if you're an artist, if you, you know, my art is business. Your art is probably leadership. As you join me in, in this podcast, maybe you're in sales and you listen. I know we've got a lot of frontline technicians and, and call takers and dispatchers that listen as well. So you're, you're all leading and a lot, all of us are leading clients and customers, right? So, you know, fear is big. The unknown and then the ego jumps in and the ego wants to focus on lack and separation and all those different types of things. And so I want you to just think for a moment. I'll probably record a few episodes around friction, but friction is a big blocker, too, whether it shows up as resistance or, or just some minor friction. But what do you need to embrace or remove in order to move on when I'm asking you to fail is your future self. You know, like, obviously, you know, if you've listened to my, my podcast at all or you're a blue collar member, you know, I don't believe in failure. And then I title a podcast around failure because it's almost the mind screw that I want you to have of. You're not going to fail anyway. You're just going to play the game. You're just going to do something you were afraid to do. And that's what life's about. And that's why I shared the More Model last week. That's where you've continued to evolve. It's where you continue to learn. It's where you continue to grow. So let Me give you three things to focus on this week. I'll get you out of here. Number one, get some clarity of your future self. What do you want? Who do you want to be? What's your future self look like? What's the position at the business? What's the position in life? What's your financial situation? Where do you want to live? What. What is it? What type of company do you want to have that. All of those things. Get some clarity. Like what's, what's the role that you want? What are the relationships that you want? And. And also what's the resistance that you see that's holding you back? So number one, get clarity of your future self. It's also the first dimension in the six dimensions of change 2.0. Number two, remember and reframe a past failure. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean, if you're, If I'm going to fail as my future self, I don't believe in failure. So I look back at all of what the world called failures for, you know, maybe that's. Maybe it's divorce. Maybe it could be a failed company for you. Maybe it could be a bankruptcy for you. Maybe it could be getting fired in the past. Whatever those are. Where, where you went, man, that sucks. I wouldn't do that. I, I'm. I, I think, you know, I failed there. Or reframe it. It happened for you, not to you. Yes, you had a major role in it, and now you get to mine the gold from that and so reframe it. It wasn't a failure. It was an experience. You got a result that you weren't intending, which is gold that now you can move forward with. So number one, get clarity of your future self. What do you want? Who do you want to be? Number two, think about something that happened to you in the past and reframe it as a success. I, for me personally, I've been divorced twice. I'm not proud of that, but I'm grateful for that. What does that mean? When I set out, I told you my parents were married 11 times between them. When I got married the first time at 19 years old while I was in the army, I. That was going to be forever. That was my intention. I felt the same way when. Then that didn't work out. And I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart and thinking that I settled at that time as so did she. But. But we, we weren't meant for each other. And it took us a decade to figure that out because I was going back to Who I was as a. As a high school student when we were having that kind of puppy love. And that wasn't my reality long term. And I used to think that was terrible. Here's the deal. I mined so much gold from those first two that I now have an incredible marriage to the lovely Christie. And guess what? Yet again, I do believe this is the last time I'm going to get married. Meaning I'm. I'm with the lovely Christie. I'm in it to win it. We're. We're going to be married a long time. We're about to roll 15 years, and it gets better every year. And I don't say that for lip service. I say that because we are evolving together. Or I should say we're evolving individually, side by side. And that's where we've removed as much codependency as we can from our relationship. And what's left, we continue to chip away at it. So remember and reframe those. Oh, man. Divorce was terrible. No, it's one of the best things that ever happened to me because I live. I have a marriage of bliss now. And not. Not that it doesn't take work and not that we always agree. We. We always agree to share information and make a. Make a good decision together. That's what it's all about. Number one, clarity of your future self. Who do you want to be? Where do you want to go? Number two, remember and reframe some sort of a failure. Number three, write this down. Show up today. What is something. Write these down. Two things. Number one, what is something you'll start doing? And embrace. Write down the word embrace. Start and embrace. And number two, what is something I'll stop and eliminate. So start. Embrace, stop, eliminate. What does that look like for you? When. When I got clarity in my future self, I realized that all the pain that I had in my past, all this stuff, and I'll. I'll just say, like, from how much I drank by the time I quit, like, this was not good. It was a. It was a. It was a necessary part of my life. But when I realized who I wanted to be, the roles I wanted to have, the relationships I wanted to have, and eliminating the resistance, I went, ah, this isn't serving me well. Now my failure is I drank for a long time. I smoked a ton of weed. I was like, my gosh, this is awful. This is terrible. No, this. I. That was simply a coping mechanism. It was a distraction technique. I was doing what I needed to do, which billions of people on the planet are popping Xanax every day or having prescriptions. I just self prescribed, self prescribed my stuff. I was my own doctor, I guess. But when I realized like no, that that happened for me, that was necessary. And then I showed up and said, well, I want to. What do I want to start doing? What do I want to embrace? Self, care, self love, make putting myself first, taking care of myself. What do I want to stop? I want to stop beating myself up. I want to stop drinking, I want to stop smoking. I want to start doing these things differently in my life. That's what it's about. And that's a big one. It could just simply be losing five pounds for you. My future self is healthier. I'm five pounds less. Okay, cool. Reframe of failure. I've been on a diet before. That shit didn't work. Okay, well what, what did you learn from it? Maybe this time you don't call it a diet. Maybe it's a life change. Maybe it's an eating plan, maybe it's a workout situation, whatever that is. Show up today. So then with that, what's something I'm going to start doing today? Well, I'm going to start putting on my gym shoes before I, before I, you know, have my coffee in the morning because then I know I'm going to the gym. What time I'm going to stop doing. I'm going to stop eating the late night snack because I just go to sleep after that anyway and they're just dead burn calories. So I'm going to challenge myself to go to bed without that dopamine from the food and see what that looks like. You see where I'm at, my friend? I see where you're at. I want you to embrace it. The world calls it failure. I call it experience. I want you to have more experiences. And when you fail as your future self, what means you go out and live life today the way you want, the way you're going to need to, to be that future version of yourself. Life is incredible. And guess what? Life is incredible anyway. So you might as well step into your greatness and enjoy every moment. Thank you so much for being with me. Do me a favor, kick this episode to somebody. Shoot me an email if you have feedback. More importantly, give me review if you have feedback. I would love to hear from you and I would love it if you would share. As our community continues to grow. Episode 136 Future Self Failure I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Until we talk, make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you next time. Thank you.