145. Identity - Chosen or Given?

Foreign. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to leadership in a nutshell, cracking the code of the driven mind. And I'm super honored and just so grateful to have you with me here today. I just, I want to share a few moments and I'm going to ask if I can just speak from my heart today about something that's really important to me as I watch clients struggle. I'll say would be the word that I would use around a specific time topic, and that is identity. Today's episode 145, Identity Chosen or given. And that's where I, I really want us to think as driven leaders. We've created a lot of identity in our lives, but there's also identity that has been given to us, created for us, if you will. Different things in society create identity, different ways that we show up. So we really. There's three questions that I want to ask you to think about for yourself, and I'll share a couple of my thoughts with you as well. So three questions today. Where does identity come from? How does it define us? And most importantly, how can we change it if it's not fitting for me, if it's not who I want to be? Right. So where does it come from? My gosh. I mean, get out the laundry list of basically every experience that you've had from the time you took your first breath has been involved in creating, or I won't say creating your identity, but I'll say creating a space for you to assume your identity. A lot of times we get assigned identity and then we end up accepting that identity. And every time, you know this is true, is when somebody that has a fixed mindset. Great book by Carol Dweck called Mindset, where she talks about scarcity and abundance mindset, or I should say fixed and growth mindset is how Carol frames it. I talk about scarcity and abundance mindset. And so when I think about, you know, really, last week's podcast, when I spoke to you about permission, I really wanted to piggyback that this week with a conversation around identity, because perhaps you've been assigned an identity and accepted that identity, when maybe it's not true for you anymore. Maybe it doesn't really resonate with who you are as you grow and evolve, as you elevate your consciousness, as you spend more time on this planet, as you have different relationships, different hardships, different challenges, different wins, different things of as you create your own evolution. There's different ways that identity can come in and impact you. But we have to first acknowledge where it comes from. It comes from everything that you look and see. It comes from society, it comes from parents, it comes from friends, it comes from external, not external family, but we'll say extended family. It comes from geography, it comes from socioeconomics, it comes from race, ethnicity. It comes from all these different things. And I think about that where I've had different identities both given to me and chosen by me. And when I think about some of those, I've had an identity that I'm a SoCal boy. So for those of you that aren't familiar, that's. I was born in Southern California. I was born in San Diego. We moved away When I was 6 years old, 1976, we left San Diego. I've never lived there since. The lovely Christy and I spend a fair bit of time down there, but we've never lived there again since. And somehow I still had created identity around. I'm a Southern California boy because I liked that energy, I liked that freedom, I liked the ocean, I liked what that represented. I didn't choose to leave. My parents chose to leave. However, I left home when I was 17 years old, never to live at home again. And so now in my early 50s, which is incredibly young, I might remind you, as a young 52 year old. Don't make me do the math. What, 30, 35 years, 34 years ago, 35 years ago that I left home and I didn't go back to Southern California. So why do I have identity around that isn't that interesting? So then I also developed an identity around being from small town America. And there's an identity that when we would go to Denver or the big city or if the lovely Christy and I were traveling, we better hit up the shopping malls, we, we better go look at the, the new car lots and see what's new in luxury car departments. We better. Why? Because we had identity that we, we didn't have access to those things. So there's different identity that shows up. And then we fast forward, I, I end up going into the United States army. And there's identity around the army, there's identity around all of the armed forces. And let me remind you that, that regardless of a time of peace or a time of war, the only arm of the armed forces, I'll call it, that never has issues recruiting, guess what it is, it's the Marine Corps. Why? Because they have such an identity. They talk about, you know, semper fidelis, always faithful. They, they embrace the suck. They say that the, the more challenging it is, the more of a Marine you are. They're the first in and the last out. All these. And as young kids were like, oh, man, I want to be a part of that. I want to be a warrior. I want to be these different. And they fed us that on tv and we bought into it. My father was a marine, and he told me personally, never go in the Marine Corps. I'm not. I'm not, you know, I'm not minimizing that for anybody. I went in the army because that was what served my life. At the time that I got in, I was overweight to get into the Air Force. They wouldn't let me in. They didn't do body fat taping. So the army was my choice. I. I wanted Air Force because that was the cushest job that I was aware of in the armed forces. But so then I had identity around being a soldier. And then the Gulf War happened and I went to war, and then I became a combat vet. Oh, listen to how that sounds. Combat vet. That's something special now, right? So you just think about there's an identity. Well, oh, man, I've. I've had hardship, I've had different things. And again, guess what? I'm proud of being a combat vet. I'm proud of the sacrifice that I made. I didn't want to, by the way, but I signed up for it. I fulfilled my obligation. I'm proud that I grew up in a small town. I'm proud that I had those experiences. I'm proud that I'm from California. I'm proud that I live in Arizona now. But what I want you to think about is in your leadership career, in your influencing, not social media influencing, but as you influence and impact those around you, in your team, in your family, in different areas, where is your identity showing up? That's still congruent and in alignment with you. A lot of the work I've committed my life to now is authenticity. I've got an authentic life architecture, group of gentlemen that I work with around just allowing your own authenticity to shine through. Guess what? Sometimes your authenticity freaks people out. Sometimes the more you lean into your true, authentic self, the more it exposes them. And I'm not talking from an ego standpoint of like, oh, look at, I'm more authentic than you. I'm talking about I'm just doing the best I can to be the very best version of me that God created and put on this planet. In order for me to have the best experience I can and contribute the most to the planet, I contribute the Most and contribute the best. When I'm living in authenticity, when I. When I'm embracing an identity that fits me, that I've chosen, not that was given to me. My mother's a fundamentalist Christian. My father was an outlaw biker. You think there's a couple different identities pulling at me? I went fully into both for a while. I mean, I didn't ride with the Axeman, my dad's gang, before he was taken off the planet. Too early, somewhat from those life choices? Well, not probably somewhat, but 100% from those life choices. But, you know, I did the church thing as a. As a younger individual and tried to get into it. Just didn't resonate with me. And it may at some point in my life, just not right now. So some people have identity around religion, some people have identity around finance, as a recovered addict. Guess what? A lot of people have identity around recovery. Oh, you don't drink anymore? No, I quit 27 years, 18 days and five hours ago. Okay, cool. That does. I'm not saying that's bad. I'm just saying be aware that there's identity around. So this identity's everywhere. And I'm not saying identity is bad. I gotta state that I can't say that enough. What I want you to do is set yourself free from any given identity that doesn't line up with your true authentic self as a leader and really question, ask some better questions of yourself, of the universe, of God, spirit, soul, soul, force, and just decide like, does this fit me any longer? So where does it come from? I think we got a good handle on that. How does it define us? Write this down. Basic values. Basically, that's where it's at. When I think about values of your life, when you think about values of your leadership. If you're an owner or a visionary listening today, think about the core values of your company. When the lovely Christy and I sat down and created the core values for the blue collar success group, what I may not have even realized at that time is we were creating the identity of the organization as well as some, check it out, given identity for our team. Now, I just said, make sure you're choosing your own identity. Don't accept someone else's if it's not in alignment with your own authenticity. But when Christy and I said, operate with integrity, there's identity there. When Christy and I said, exceed expectations, when we sat down and said, we're going to grow with purpose, we're not just going to chase everything that comes along, we're going to grow with purpose. And then when we said, what's going to wrap out our core four of our core values, we're going to win together. And when we built those core values for our company, what we did is we set an identity for the organization. Guess what? We now gave an assumed identity to our team members. Guess what else happened? We have now given an identity to those of you that are blue collar success group clients listening today. So now you have an identity around being a part of our organization. Because we operate with integrity, because we exceed expectations, because we grow with purpose, and because we win together, there's something there. And so when you check your own identity and when you really think about who you are, there's basic values that create the framework for who you are. That's why it's crucially important to your happiness, your peace, your success, your love, your fulfillment, your ultimate bliss in life to make sure you're choosing it now. Our parents did the best that they could. Absolutely. I believe everybody in life is doing the very best they can. It's just they're doing it with the information they have from their perspective, from their time on the planet. And that's wonderful. And I want to mine all that gold, all that experience, all that history, all that the past experiences, the wisdom that my parents, my mentors, my peers, my friends, other people have in the life experience. As a human, I want all that and then I want to choose my own. And that's where I think we get lost. And that's where, as driven leaders, I want to challenge you today when it comes to identity. Is yours something that's been given to you wholeheartedly, 100% anointed you, knighted you, if you will? Or is it something like, hey, here's a framework? Maybe this religion works for you? And you said, yeah, that works for me, but I'm going to make this little tweak to it. Maybe you said, you know, I was born into this type of a, of a, of a family situation or an economic situation. That works for me, but I'm going to do this a little bit differently. Maybe you were the first person in your, in your. You know, I often kind of joke about families that, that, you know, not joke, I shouldn't say it that way, but people, you hear people say I'm the first in my family to not go to college. And what's beginning to get, I mean, the first in my family to go to college. I should say I jumped ahead of myself. You see where I'm going, people say I'm the first in my family to ever go to Colle years ago. That was admirable. There was identity around that. Guess what? It's beginning to shift now. And in the blue collar trades, we're starting to say I'm the first in my family that didn't go to college. And cue the fireworks and the woo. Yeah, all right. You're going to get out of, you know, get into your career with less debt and all the different types of things. But, you know, I. Either way, it's fine. I just want you to realize that you get to choose your identity. And as a leader, it's super important because people are creating their own identity under our watch and deciding who they are based on who we've decided we are and how we stand. And when people leave the organization, it can be because values don't line up. Really, one of the only ways to leave the blue collar success group is to not adhere to our core values. And generally, I could frame almost everything in that. Even if you're not able to do your job at the level that you've agreed or we've trained you to do, then guess what? That's not growing with purpose or winning together. So we have to set you free if that's the case. Right. So just think about how powerful this is and where it really comes from, how it defines us. Now let's talk about changing it. Couple notes here. Number one, you got to get consciously aware. You got to know what it is. And that's where I'm challenging you today to ask that question. I want you to think from a place of freedom and authenticity of what it looks like. Who do you really want to be? How do you really want to show up in this incredible world as a leader? Is leadership even for you? Do you want to continue carrying this torch, having this identity of being a leader? Then I want you to move to intention with action. Sometimes we set intention, and that's necessary, and I'm huge on intention. But we've got to have action behind it in order to be this new version of ourselves that we're setting out to become as we shift our identity, as we change our identity. I used to have an identity as a drinker, as a partier. I would be the last person in the bar and the first person to hit the stage the next morning. I ended up with identity around that when I decided to stop drinking and stop partying. I party more than I ever have in my life now from a place of having fun and love and enjoyment and bliss. I just don't use substance anymore as a part of it. So I will say I'm still a partier, but when I'm tired, I go to bed. I don't have identity that I have to be out the latest. I'll still go to the bar with you, but when you start slurring your words and you start saying the same shit over and over again, I'm out. I'm just gonna say nothing against you. I don't. I'm not mad at it. I've been there. I've done it plenty of times. I just know it's time for me to head out and go get some rest. That's it. It's all good. It's all about you and you living your greatest self and me living my greatest self and the person next to you living their greatest self and your spouse living their greatest self and your team living their greatest self. And that's what makes the world a better place. Last thing, second to last thing I'll say is reinforce this new identity with self appreciation. Be proud of yourself as you step in. What happens when you change identity? You change your values. When you change your values, you change the rules. When you change the rules, people leave your life. I lost some friends when I quit drinking. I lost some friends when I left a national best practices group to follow my dreams to launch the blue collar success group and make an impact and an influence the way that Christy and I knew in our hearts had to be done. People judged me. People walked out of my life at that time. That was hard at the time. I don't hold anything against them, for them. I get it. It's based on fear and I understand that. I'm not judging that. I'm just saying when I changed my identity, I changed everything around me because everything around you changes when you change. So be easy with yourself, celebrate yourself. Enjoy this process. It's going to be challenging, but enjoy it. And last and certainly not least, my friend, don't conform. Don't get back. People go, you seem to be acting a little different. Come on, you used to be different. You. Absolutely. That's the whole point. I'm changing my identity here. Don't get sucked back into conforming to what society wants for you, what parental construct wants for you for being the quote should put that in air quotes. Person that you're supposed to be. You are absolutely meant to be the person that you want to be. And last week we talked about permission. I give you permission. Give yourself permission to be that person. Check your identity. Was it given to you or did you choose it? Maybe it's time to do a little reflection, do a little inventory, and maybe choose again. I'm Kenny. I'm so honored to have you here. Episode 145 Identity Chosen or Given Just do me a favor, kick this to somebody that needs it, somebody that needs to hear this. I want to grow this community, and I just want to grow with people that this resonates with. I know this isn't for everybody. Me just kind of randomly sharing thoughts and strategies and tools with you once a week, 10, 15, 20 minutes. It's not for everybody, but there are people that want this, and that's why our community is growing. And email this to somebody that you could share and have a conversation later with until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week, and I'll see you real soon. Thank you.