146. Happiness and Leadership

Hey, my friend. Welcome back to the show. I'm so pumped to have you. Leadership in a Nutshell. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Episode 146. Today we are talking about happiness and leadership. Two things very near and dear to my heart. And I love them both, I live them both, I study them both, I embrace them both. And today I just really wanted to take a step back and, you know, there's a lot shifting in the world. There's a lot changing in the world. There's a lot of different perspectives and perception showing up, and it's a great time to remember it, Just be happy. It's one of those areas where I look and go, how can I be more effective as a leader? How can I create a better environment? How can I improve my culture? And we forget that you are the biggest influencer and influence, or I'm not sure what that means, but I'm going to say you're the one that you need to influence and you then influence other people, right? So I just want you to think about that. And, you know, we live in this world of social media influencers and all this and how many likes and views, and that's not what I'm talking about here. In Leadership in a Nutshell, we're breaking it down to the core. So to the things that drive fulfillment, enjoyment, peace, happiness, love, contentment, bliss. Those are the things that drive me. And if you're listening here, you know that this is something that is, number one, not talked about enough, in my opinion, which is why I have this podcast. And number two, it just gets kind of brushed under the rug. So today I've got kind of four main ideas that I want you to think about when it comes to happiness and leadership. And number one, happiness is a critical factor when it comes to effective leadership. It's a critical factor when you, when you really think about, you know, well, I want to be as effective as possible. So that means, you know, I remember my mom used to talk about burning. You're burning the candle at both ends. And I always, ah, mom, stop. I just want to do that. And then inevitably I'd, I'd end up getting a cold or getting sick or finding a way to miss school or whatever it was. I was pretty good at that one too, by the way. But, you know, it's a critical factor, happiness when it comes to leadership, because it's tied to your connectivity and you think, well, I'm going to work more hours, I'm going to do more things, I'm going to Elevate my influence by being a perfectionist, by being there the most hours, by being the first one in and the last one to leave. Now, I'm not saying you don't bust your ass. You got to work hard. I ran every single service call that my company had for the first two years and then I was on call half of the time for the next two years. And then I started slowly getting out of the call rotation and all those different types of things in the plumbing heating business. And then I finally built that into a self managing, self scaling company and was able to live where I love to live, which is in leadership, influence and impact. And so then what do I do? I sell that business. And I'd already launched a blue collar success group with the lovely Christie. We were going along and guess what? We were the road soldiers. Then I was doing every course, every training, every coaching call, every group session, every everything. And so I'm not saying you don't work hard. It's a necessary component. You absolutely need to work hard. It's not about that, but it's about having a good time. I had a blast when I was growing my businesses from the ground up. Now I have a blast growing businesses from where we are moving forward. And so I just want you to really focus on that fact. It's so critical. Why? Because optimism improves organizations. Happy leaders create happy followers. Happy followers create optimism. That kind of goes throughout the organization. And so I want you to just think about that. One of the other things I want you to embrace as a leader is, you know, you, you can't change a personality and you're going to spend your entire career frustrated as all get out. If you're just constantly trying to change people's personalities and who they are and this and that, you can't change that. But what you can change is the influence factors. I'll say what I mean by that is the environment, the platform, the culture of the organization. And so you can create a space where people can choose how they want to show up. Most people live in negativity. The great Les Brown, when I was traveling with him, he used to have a saying. He'd say from stage, he'd say, most people are so dark, when they walk into a room, the lights go out. Right? I gotta love Les. If you haven't watched some Les Brown, go grab a YouTube clip and check out some less. He's amazing. I'm so blessed, Grateful we got to spend some time traveling with him. But you know, when it, when it comes to this first point, it's such a critical factor, happiness. And, and I think it's because of that, because when you're connected, when you're happy, people want to be around you. And when your team gets more optimistic, the game changes and everybody has more fun. And ultimately, I don't know about you, but that's what I want to do. I want to have fun in life. And my outlet, my expression happens to be the business platform. And so I'm a simplifier. I take complex situations, scenarios, mindsets with people and I chunk them down and I make them more simple. And that's just what drives me. That's fun. How about you and your environment? So number one critical factor is happiness with effective leadership. Number two, check it out. Leaders who are happy are more successful. At the end of the day, we have this whole thing. What does success look like? What does success mean? That's one of the reasons I wrote blue collar success laws. And so if you haven't got that copy yet, go to blue collarsuccesslaws.com and I'll ship you a copy for just covering the shipping. But the reality is there's so many, in my opinion, misdefined ways to quantify success. And when we chunk it down and go, hey, man, number one currency to me is happiness. Yes, I want dough, I want a lot of dough, and I want to continue to make dough, and I want cash confidence that I talk about a lot. And I want assets, and I want to grow our real estate portfolio, and I want to grow businesses, and I want to grow my team's income, and I want to grow my clients income, and I want all those things around income to incur, to continue to grow. But currency is what comes to mind, and happiness is my number one currency. If I don't have happiness, then who cares about the other things, about the other stuff, about. Well, I'm rich and miserable and poor. And I used to have that limiting belief. I was taught that rich was a bad thing. Not so much that people came out and said rich is bad, but I certainly was taught the misconception of the biblical reference about, you know, it's more difficult for a rich person to get to heaven than through the eye of a needle. So that, that definitely was, you know, perceived and strongly referenced when it came to rich people. So I kind of looked at that. And now as I, you know, consider myself to be a rich person in life and relationships and freedom and the things that I do like, well, wait a minute, I'm not a Bad person. I'm really a good person and I want to contribute and I want to help and I want to, but I want to be happy. And when I'm happy, people around me function better. Where are you investing for your own roi? You invest in your business, you invest in your leadership ability, you invest in your role, you invest in your team. Where are you investing in your own happiness? Check that. Number three, there are many ways to increase happiness. So if I, if you go, okay, Kenny, I'm with you a little bit, but great, I'm not feeling it. I'm not very happy right now. That's okay. Be easy with yourself. Number one. And let's focus on a couple of ways that we can improve happiness. Number one, gratitude. What I find is the more optimistic I am, the more I create in my life, the more love that I feel and I share and I'm peace and energy, the more I've committed to self care, my meditation practice, journaling, all those different types of things, I can still get away from gratitude because I always want more, right? I want more happiness. I'm super happy, but I want more happiness. I'm super healthy, but I want more health. And when you take a step back and go, man, I'm really grateful. My mentor, Dan Sullivan, taught me to measure forward by looking back. When I turn around and look behind me and go, oh, that's where I came from. Damn, I got a lot to be grateful for. I'm grateful I don't have to wear secondhand clothes anymore. One of the reasons I'm such a big supporter of Goodwill, because I used to have to buy my clothes there. And now when the lovely Christy and I moved recently and downsized into our condo that we remodeled earlier this year as we we're living here while we're building our new next level home for us in North Scottsdale, we decided to downsize, go ahead and sell our house, and we gave all kinds of stuff to the Goodwill. And it feels so good to me and I'm so grateful to do it and not run a Facebook marketplace thing or try to sell something. I just want to give it because I was able to get some good stuff for me back then when I had to shop there. Grateful I don't have to shop there. I'm grateful I can record a podcast. I'm grateful for the technology that allows this to happen today. I'm grateful for you being there as my listener. I'm grateful that I can see, I'm grateful that I can hear. I'm grateful That I can breathe. I'm grateful that I'm alive. I'm grateful. Grateful. Oh my gosh. Do you feel that energy? Just think about it. But how often do you shut that down? Well, yeah, but I don't have this or damn it, I woke up. My back's a little bit sore today. Chill out and find some gratitude. That's number one. Number two, I already touched on. It's self care and self love. How do I increase happiness? I focus on myself. And that is definitely a difference from what we're taught or how we're. Oh no, you need to give, give, give. It's all about other people. I contribute to other people all the time. I'm doing it right now as I'm sharing great information with you to improve and change your life and those around you. But I had to get up this morning, do my breath work, do my meditation, do my journaling, go to the gym and have some quality time with the lovely Christy Set my intention, and off we go. Now I'm here with you, getting to enjoy this time. That's what it's all about. I show up better when I take better care of this human experience that I'm having. So I encourage you. Look at your self care. Look at your self love that increases happiness. When you're worth it, you'll do it. The third thing is it's about prosperity and remembering that, you know, we all want prosperity and to prosper. There's a key to that root word of prosper that means to move forward with hope. And that's one of the ways to up level your happiness, no matter how crappy it is right now, no matter how challenging it is or how amazing it is. But I want to speak to you that are, that are in a bit of a funk right now or a little bit challenged. I read a statistic Yesterday that said 20% of Americans are not able to pay their bills right now. Now that sucks. Like, that's unfortunate. The challenge is, is we're, we're functions of consumer society and people aren't able to, I, I'd say this generally, but a lot of people aren't able to not fall susceptible, if you will, to the marketing, the advertising. You can't watch football without Bud Light and buying cars and new cell phones and all the prescription drugs you can have, like all these different things. Imagine if they still advertise cigarettes on tv. You know, it's just all the different things that we're taught in this lax society. Step back from that and realize that no matter where I'm at right now, I've got hope. I want to move forward. That's why when I talk about cash confidence, I don't talk about how much cash you have today as giving you cash confidence. It's how confident are you in your ability to create cash. So yes, we're headed into a downturn. Maybe we're full on in it right now. Whatever's happening, consumer spending is slowing. You may be seeing this in call count in your businesses, you may be seeing this in buyer behavior. You may see that sales is becoming more of an art again, not just an order taking proposition as it was for the last three to five years, right? So just realize, hey, I've got hope, things are going to continue. I'm going to learn that up levels happiness. Last key point I want to share with you here today. Being happy just makes you a better leader and a better person, period. It's just, it's so much more fun. I think of, you know, I can either be miserable or I can be happy. And, and I spent a lot of my life miserable. My God, I like. Why did I have drug and alcohol issues? Because I was trying to mask my misery. I don't know that I've ever said it that way, but I think that's, I think that's legit. Maybe there's something I ought to write about there for you. But you know, mask my misery. Maybe there's an upcoming episode there. What are you doing to mask your misery? I won't jump into it now, but that, that just, that's what I used to do. And the fact was I wasn't happy. I was producing, I was creating income, I was creating freedom. I had my dream relationship that literally like I created on paper the lovely Christy that I wanted to bring into my life. She came into my life, I just wasn't ready. Self worth wise. She hung with me, I hung with her. We figured it out, all the different things, you know, it's really, it's about stepping into your greatness. And when you realize this, what happens? You become more productive, your company gets more profitable, you get to have more fun. And one of the key things is you get healthier. And none of these things matter if you're not healthy at the end of the day. I remember again, I'll reference my mentor, Dan Sullivan. He said that, you know, as long as you have a problem that you can write a check and solve, you don't have a problem even if you don't have the check yet. Meaning that If I can write a check and fix anything in my life, then all I have to do is create enough value in the world to go get that check, write the check and it's fixed. But I can't fix certain health things or challenges that you know, certain things like that, then you know, that's a real challenge. But you're going to make time for your health. You're going to make time for your self care. I want you to do it now. I want you to get up and I want you to work on yourself and I want you to lean into yourself and I want you to love yourself and that makes you happier and that makes people want to be around you and people go, oh, you can't get anybody. I don't know how you find anybody that wants to work. Everybody sucks and everybody's miserable. Well, I sure as hell don't want to come and work for somebody that has that perspective. Why would anybody else? This solves your recruiting challenges. This is what it's all about, my friend. Happiness and leadership. I encourage you, lean into it. Focus on these four keys I gave you today. Happiness is critical when it comes to effective leadership. Leaders who are happy are more successful. There are many ways to increase it. I've given you a few here today. And lastly, it makes being happy just makes you a better leader and a better person. That's where we want to live. That's where we want to thrive. I'm here for you on this journey. If I can help you in any way, don't hesitate to reach out. Kennyennychapman.com I'm always here for you. This is episode 146, Happiness and Leadership. Kick this to somebody. Share it with somebody. I would be very, very grateful. Keep improving, keep growing, keep loving, keep living until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you next time. Thank you.