147. Who Do You Report To?

Foreign. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to leadership in a nutshell. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. I'm so honored that you're here. Episode 147 today. Who do you report to? When, when you think about it, like who, who do you really report to? I want to dive in today and just unpack this a little bit and uncover some thoughts. Like when I was posed this question by one of my coaches and mentors, I was like, yeah, you know, I'm, I'm the founder and the CEO and so I, I don't really report to anybody. I don't have a board of directors specifically. I, and as we started diving and doing some more thinking around this, I just, it really uncovered some things for me and I want to have a conversation with you today about this. So when, when you think, you know, regardless, here's the deal. I'm speaking to you wherever you are in your organization. Maybe, maybe you're, you know, an owner or a founder or a CEO or a president, maybe you're at the quote, top of the food chain, maybe you're a mid level manager. And so you have different people that you report to. You have certain meetings that you Maybe bring your KPIs and your data to and, and you share certain things. And, and I, you know, I, I just want you to, to really think about this because this is a, a topic and a question that I, I think it, it, there's some confusion around it because when I, when I think about my own walk of leadership and freedom and how I, how I've elevated my career throughout the years, I, I used to want to, not to, I used to not report to anybody. That's, that was the whole point of my existence. Right? Like my goal is to create my own life, my own wealth, my own freedom, my own schedule, my. And you know, to a point that when I was a young entrepreneur, I remember telling one of my, one of my uncles who was a massive influence and a big impact on my life. I told him he was in real estate and he did some house flipping and he has a bunch of rental property now. He's in his, in his pushing his mid-80s now and he's super healthy and still continues to invest in real estate and continues evolving as an investor and as a human. And he taught me so much. But we have very different investor DNA. And so I love the service business. I love people. He loves deals and he loves valuations and he loves getting things done. Not that he doesn't love people. Don't get me Wrong there. But we just come from a different way of business. So early on I thought, man, maybe we could do some stuff together. And then I realized, yeah, we can't do some stuff together because we're wired very different. We did one real estate deal together and it was very painful for both of us. And now we're able to, you know, that's gosh, 30, almost 30 years ago. We're able to look back on that and have a laugh about it. But it was painful at the time. And the challenge was I didn't want to report to him. And when we think about this and on the other side, he didn't want to report to me either. And when we became partners in a flip deal of a house that we were doing together, we both had reporting responsibilities to each other. Not from, hey, we've got a meeting on Friday. But I was working at the lumber yard full time. So I'd work all day at the lumber yard, then I'd buy the materials and I'd go to the house and I would work until 11, 12 o' clock at night on doing the work of remodeling. It had a mud sill foundation I had to dig out and put a new foundation under it so we could get FHA approved financing for a new buyer. So on and so forth. So much work. Such a pain in the butt. The deal did give me the seed money to purchase my first drain cleaning company and get me into the, into the game, which I bought for $15,000 and put $4,000 down. And that was how I became an entrepreneur. But I reported to him even though we didn't have meetings, even though we didn't have KPIs, even though we didn't have certain things, I intrinsically reported to him. And that's where I want you to really think today about who do you report to if you're an owner or if you're a mid level manager. There's this understanding that you're reporting up and down the organization. And it's true in your family, it might be true in your church, it might be true in your different groups or community groups that you're in or the different things. There's all this reporting going on in the world, but none of us are calling it what it is. And so as I sought independence and I'm going to be my own person and I'm going to do my own thing, you forget that you're living in a society among other people and we're kind of our tribe has just Expanded and now we have this online tribe and now we have these different things that come into it. I think about my incredible father in law, the lovely Christie's dad. He reported to corporate America for 40 some years of his life. And then when he finally hit retirement and he was able to leave, now he reports to the vfw, he reports to the garden club, he reports to the senior group that he's the president of right now and plans the activities. And so he's reporting still in his life. And I think we're going to report to people until we take our last breath. And guess what? We're ultimately reporting to God and the divine. Anyway, so however this looks, let's peel this back and go. No matter where you are in your organization, you're reporting to somebody. Let's see who we're reporting to and how it shows up. Four key points I want to share with you today. Number one, everybody reports to somebody, already talked about that. You're reporting up and down. Let's get clear about that flow. Number two, it exists. Whether you acknowledge it or not, it is going on. And that was one of my big kind of AHAs or takeaways from my mentor doing this work with me. It's like, well, it's happening, it's happening anyway. For my father in law as an example, it's like, well, he's got the responsibility now. He might have signed up for it, but it's there. Well, if I'm not aware that, yeah, okay, so Christy and I own the business, but I report to my executive leadership team and then ultimately I report to everybody in my organization as well as that. I report to our clients with our three levels of membership at the Blue Collar Success Group. I report to different ways and different levels and I have different responsibility and reporting to our, to our empire level as I do our growth level. But I report to everybody and especially once a quarter when I show up and do our mastery work, our mindset mastery webinars, once a quarter for the entire membership. So it all shows up in different ways and I want you to realize that. So whether you acknowledge or not, it's going on. So the question is, why are you doing what you're doing? It comes down to a function of motivation. If it's not for you, then it is for somebody else. And I would ask, like, who influences your thoughts, your behaviors, your plans, your strategies? And take a step back and maybe just jot down some of these, like, how is this showing up for me? Where am I like realizing I'M doing this task for this person, doing this task for that person, whatever that is. Get some clarity there. And then we move on to the next key point today. Who do you report to unconsciously in your head? So I asked you to write some things down and get some clarity. Now let's go a layer deeper. As we know, the subconscious brain runs 85% of our day, week, month and year, which means it's running our life. And so if I'm reporting subconsciously, or even more dangerous, unconsciously to certain things, how is that showing up? When you think about the function of conformity, I would be labeled as a non conformist because I don't personally buy into a lot of the way the world tells me to live. I don't have a specific 9 to 5. I don't have, I don't do specific health things that are told that I'm told to do. I don't eat certain foods I'm told to eat. I don't have a certain schedule I'm told to have, I don't have, handle my finances a certain way that I'm supposed to quote, unquote, whatever that is. So, you know, when I think about conformity though, it's how you're showing up. You know, you're a conformist. If you wake up first thing in the morning, grab your cell phone and dive in. Email, text messaging, YouTube videos, games, whatever it is, you're a conformist. You're just the product. You're, you're reacting to what everybody else is telling you to do. And that's okay. I'm just bringing it to your light. I love you and that's why I'm grateful that we get this time together. So don't shoot the messenger, but the reality is that maybe there's an area where you can kind of step back. Because now you're reporting to your email, you're reporting to your text messages, you're reporting to the game score or whoever you're playing. However, I know that whatever, there's different, you can play different games with different people. However that works. I'm not going to pretend that I know. What about this? Where are you reporting to your fomo? Your fear of missing out? Do you report there? Some. Do you go, oh, well, I don't know, man, maybe I had to go do that. Maybe I ought to join that. Maybe I ought to go be a part of that because I don't want to miss something. Fear can be a big report ting factor. Sometimes it's not a person specifically Sometimes you're reporting to something a little bit bigger than that. How about this social media? Where are you reporting to social media? That, oh man, I, I better comment on Jenny's jewelry thing. I better jump in and, and look at Bob's video. I better make sure that I post my stuff. Oh, check it out. I got, you know, I got a new, new food item and I'm gonna, And guess what? I used to be the king of social media. Many of you know that. I, I used to shoot daily, weekly, monthly. And why did I stop? Because I was reporting to it. Not to you, who I want to report to. I want to report to you, my followers, my fans, my clients. I want to report to you. I want to show up as the best version of myself in order to report to you. And that's no longer what it was for me when I was highly engaged in social media, when I was waiting to see who commented. What can I do? It's not about that. So you, you might check who you're reporting to because then from that, what drives that is measurement. What drives that is comparison. So now all of a sudden am I reporting to how I compare to someone else? Ooh, danger. Comparison mindset. The number one most dangerous mindset on the planet. It's destructive. It will tear you apart. When you're comparing yourself to someone else, the only thing I would encourage you to compare yourself to is your previous self. What's your future self look like? What's your previous self look like? Where are you today in your journey? And let's keep on rocking that baby. That's what it's all about. Number four, choose who you want to report to. So now we know these things. Now certainly in your work, maybe if you're a mid level manager or if you're an owner, like I'm not going to change that. I report to clients, I report to my executive team, I report to my team members. I love it. I don't. And guess what? I can't change it. As long as I'm in this business, I will report to these people. I report to Christy as my partner in the business, as co investors in this company. I report to her, she reports to me. So we all report to people, so we can't change some of those, nor would I want to. But I do want to explore who do I want to report to that might not be serving me to the greatest level. Number one, don't ever report to somebody that you have control over, which I guess ultimately you have control over all of them because you can quit your job, you can sell your business, you can go do something else, but, but you're going to find somebody. Remember my father in law, you're going to report to somebody and something. And so when it comes to that, make sure that you only report to people that support you. I'm a big fan of being firm with people, of holding people accountable to the life they say that they want to live. I also understand that what most people say they want isn't really what they want. A lot of times we aren't chasing our own goals, we're chasing society goals, parental goals, family goals, overall, whatever that is. That's fine. It's just something to unpack for yourself and get clear on. But I realized in the past where I reported to peers of mine, I reported to friends of mine that had a little bit of fixed mindset or a lot of fixed mindset. I study the mind. Carol Dweck wrote a great book called Mindset where she talks about, I'm sure I've talked about it here on this podcast before. Fixed mindset, growth mindset. For me, I talk about scarcity and abundance. Then the first law of the success laws is authentic abundance. It's massive to me. It's everything to me. It's what makes everything go round. When I get clear that we live in an abundant world with an abundant mind, with an abundant God and divine maker and all that there's just abundance everywhere. And I'm yet I'm reporting to people with scarcity mindset, I went, wait a minute, what's going on? Why do I not feel good when I talk to these people? When these people share my energy, when I get kind of, you know, they rub up against my energy and I'm going, oh my gosh, that doesn't feel good. Check yourself. I can't report to that. And so I had to make some shifts and do some things differently. It's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy. And it's certainly not popular. I get judged by it. I get judged by, by people like, man, that person's not in your life anymore. No, that's, that's not, it's. If it's not a two way winning relationship, then there's no reason to have it continue, in my opinion. So choose who you report to. How do you feel about this in reality? How do you want to change and influence? So let's think about, let's report to our happiness. Last week I talked about happiness in leadership. So where are you Reporting to your happiness? Where are you reporting to your health? Where are you reporting to God and the divine in true connection, authentic connection with you? I was taught to report to a God that was different than what I truly believe in from. Based on a mental construct that was shared with me from other people's perceptions. Yes, I believe in God and I believe in my relationship with God and I report to that in that way, shape and form. So what about for you? Soul energy? That's ultimately what it's about. So where are you reporting that gives your soul that energy that gets you to spring out of bed, that gets you to connect and deconstruct the demons and the fear and the pain and the suffering as you show up to be a better version of yourself. Ultimately you get to choose who you report to. And right now you're reporting up and down in your organization. Be clear about that, be conscious about that. Continue to work forward, continue to improve and keep stepping into your greatest self. That's what it's all about. And I want to thank you. I want to thank you for showing up and giving me 10, 15, sometimes 20 minutes here to just give you a shot of thought. That's really all I'm trying to do, is give you a shot of thought right now, to step back, think about your thinking. Do me a favor, share this with somebody, kick this to somebody. We're always here for you. We're always looking to help you grow in any way we can. Leadership in a nutshell, episode 147. Who do you report to? Till we talk next week? Making a better than fantastic one. And I'll see you real soon. Thanks for being here.