152. The Most Important Question

Foreign Kenny Chapman here, your host of leadership in a nutshell, cracking the code of this driven mind we're blessed with. It can be called the monkey brain. It can be called the crazy mind, it can be called the addhd. Insert some more letters because we are all crazy. I'm not minimizing anything here. I'm saying we've all got our challenges and we have different chemicals that we working with in our brain. My goal here is to help you unlock some of that, to slow some things down and to choose your life, your greatest life, to the best of your ability. Welcome to episode 152, the most important Question. So when we think about emotional freedom and emotional regulation and happiness and joy and really enjoying what we do. And for me, yes, this is kind of framed as a business podcast, but the context is really about life. And I've said from the very beginning of my speaking career over 22 years ago now, I think it is when I first started speaking and doing any kind of coaching, and I had been in business for several years, but I started as a consultant, went to Michael Gerber's E. Myth Academy way back in December of 2000, and began my kind of focus and career as a consultant and a coach. And I realized that questions are powerful. And I realize that most of us aren't asking powerful questions. And so where you are in your life, your life as it is today, is a direct reflection of the questions that you ask. And most of us ask kind of small questions. We ask limiting questions, we ask identifying questions. And so I've talked about questions before, but I just want to talk about one question today that's kind of, we'll call it the frame of the overall question. But then we're just going to change a word here and there and direct different meaning and understand some different things from this. Okay, so when I think about the most important question, you know, you've got challenges in your business, you've got challenges in your life. We're seeing an economic shift. There's, there's, there's different movement going on in interest rates. There's different confidence being kind of addressed and perhaps shaken at times in consumers. And, and, you know, the, the market's shifting. That's what markets do. It's how it works. Like, regardless of what's going on in the stock market, you've got your own market, you've got your own business climate that your team members mindsets that you're working with, you've got, you know, different things are creating your reality. And as Driven leaders. It's our responsibility to kind of observe all of these things and realize that, that I'm part of this game, but I'm also observing this game. And so when I think about, you know, one of the most important questions that, that, that we can ask, it has to do with utilization. In business, we always, you know, we, we want efficiency, right? And some of you might price your services based on billable hour efficiency. How many hours throughout the day can I sell? And if I can sell more hours than I can price my product for less because I have more hours of revenue contributed to cover the fixed overhead in the business. Right. Whatever that is. I'm not here to talk to you about billable hour efficiency. I got plenty of coaches in blue collar that can do that. I'm here to talk to you about the efficiency of your brand brain, the efficiency of your mind, the efficiency of your emotions and what that looks like and how that shows up. And when I think about, how can I frame this for you today? I want you to write this down. And obviously, you know, there's some of these, some of these podcasts that I have you do a little bit more homework with, and some of them I just kind of download my brain and give you an idea. And here's what's resonating with me for you right now in this moment. Here's the question. Write it down. Is this the best use of fill in the blank? And so I want you to start really kind of crafting this question for yourself. And when you think about your leadership, your interpersonal skills, your finances, you're investing in the company and team and training and educa. Is this the best use of. And then let that land. And so one of the first ones and the easiest ones, one of the ones that I resonate a lot with, that I'll ask myself, depending on projects, depending on opportunities, because as a driven leader, you've got all kinds of opportunities. You've got all areas that you could use your time, energy and resources. And so you take a step back and you start going, okay, the first question, I'm going to fill in the blank for you on a few of these. Is this the best use of my time? Time is one of those things that it's an interesting resource because we all share it in absolute equality. And it's been fascinating to me since I started really studying. I'll put this in air quotes. Time management, no such thing. By the way. You can't manage time. You can only manage human behav. And you can't even manage other people's human behavior. Sorry. All the managers on the line, you can only manage your own behavior of how you create interaction with those others. Now, don't get me wrong, at Blue Collar, we run Management Growth Academy and we teach all the tactics, tools, strategies of being the best manager possible. But I want to set you mentally free. At the end of the day, if I can't get you to do it, I can't get you to do it. Because as a team member, you're managing your own mind. So we have this, you know, obviously certain things of management, but that's not what I'm here to talk about. I'm here to talk about your time and your resources and your energy. And is this the best use of those things that fill in the blank with whatever this activity is. So when I, when I have an opportunity come up, if I have somebody that wants to sell me something, if I have somebody that, that, you know, has an idea for us at Blue Collar, you know, if I have different things like that, like for me now, I, I work with high level leaders at just unlocking the, the top levels of their brains, helping them move through, get out of their way. Different things. Like, that's the only type of coaching I do. I don't do business coaching at all anymore. Certainly business comes up, but I'm about working with people to unlock the mind. That's why this podcast is evolving the way it is. And you'll see it shift. And don't be surprised if I change the name in the future, because it is about leadership, but really it's about unlocking your brain. And when you unlock your brain, you unlock your performance. And not only do you unlock your performance, you unlock your mental freedom, your emotional freedom. When you unlock those things, you start to be happier. When you become happier, you're able to give more happiness. You're able to be in love, you're able to be at more peace, you're able to be content. And these things don't just come from dough. It's. Yes, money's important, yes, roi, return on investment, that's important. Yes, elevating your company, growing your business, those things are all super important. It's part of your creative outlet. It's what you're here to do. You're either growing or dying. And I know that you are elevating your consciousness because you listen to me every week. It's not about listening to me. Check this out. It's about listening to you. So you come to this podcast in Order to take a moment and listen to yourself based on something that I say, something you think of when I'm saying something, a question that I ask that you pose to yourself, and that's all. So today, it's not about what I'm saying to you or what I'm asking you. It's about how this shows up for you. Is this. I'll ask you right now, is this podcast the best use of your time for 8, 10, 12, 15, 20 minutes a week? Now, obviously, I'm putting myself out there. I'm pretty vulnerable right now because I sure hope I don't lose all my listeners with them going, oh, hell no, we're out of here. Kenny, this isn't a good use of our time. I hope you're able to go, yeah, this is a good use of my time because I'm able to leverage other parts of my time because I get out of my head, I think about my thinking, I'm able to get strategic a little bit. Okay, cool. Fill in the blank with other things. When you have somebody come to you, when you have an opportunity, is this the best use of my time? As one, is this the best use of my resources? That's another one. So when I want to invest, I want to do this with my, you know, with. With different things. Is this the best use of my talent? I'll. I'll say for myself, I'm extremely, extremely talented at very, very little. I'm just not that great at that many things. But those few things that I'm really great at, I'm really freaking great at it. And I don't say that from a cocky standpoint. I say that from decades and hundreds of thousands of dollars in trying to figure out this amazingly crazy brain that resides inside the human experience of what has been named Kenny Chapman. Right? So when you think about, is this the best use of your talent? Is this the best use of your team? And I'm rolling all these together in the interest of time for you here today. But I want you to just step back and think about different times throughout the week. Different opportunities, you know, different things in the business, different things in your life, different relationships, different friendships, different, again, going back to money. I, you know, for me, I'm not a big stock market investor. I invest in companies that I have influence over, which are my own for primarily. And I invest in human experience. And what I've found is the more that I invest in human experience, and that can be elevating others, training others, helping my own team step into Their greatness. I invest in those things and I invest in my own education, my own coaching, and my own life experiences. I believe that I invest in myself and I invest in you As a podcast follower, listener, and possible client of the Blue Collar Success Group. When the lovely Christy and I, I take a trip to Europe, I'm investing in my own growth and my own conscious awareness and my own understanding of myself and the way the world works. And based on that, I become better. And when I become better, I become better for myself. When I become better for myself, I become better for you. And so there's Am I, is this a good use of my talent? Is this a good use of my team? Is this a good use of my capital? So whether you're investing in something, maybe you're getting ready to add a line extension, maybe you're looking to hire a manager of a department. Is that a good, you know, that's one of those. Let's take that, let's run with that for a second. Let's say you're looking for a service manager of your plumbing division. Okay. And right now you've kind of been overseeing it a little bit, or the manager that you've got just isn't getting it done, so you've kind of had to be involved a little bit too much with it. Okay, well, how about, is this a good use of my time? Is this the best use of my time? Constantly happen to jump in and do this individual's job? You'll get an answer. Now I want to go hire someone else. I want to uplevel my who instead of working on the how myself. So I'm going to invest in a new who there. Or perhaps I just need to invest in training the who that I have. It's an individual scenario. You need to come to that for yourself. But is this the best use of my time to be jumping back in and fixing things? I'm going to tell you right now, no, it's not there. I guess sometimes I tell you what to think. How about that? But I'm going to tell you, you come to that conclusion on your own as well. Right? So is this the best use of my time? No. Is this the best use of my capital to invest in up leveling this position so I have more time? Here we go. Maybe that's the case. I've been told for many, many years that I pay my top leaders too much money. I pay too much in my companies and different things very well throughout every business I've ever owned because I believe in hiring top talent, retaining top talent, allowing people to be their very best version of themselves. And that's ultimately what it's about. And so, you know, is this the best use of fill in the blank. And ultimately, let me leave you with this as I get you out of. Here's a deeper one that I use in myself and this has zero to do with business. Or maybe it does. And the deepest question perhaps is, is this the best use of my life? That's a super powerful question and that's a very exciting question. And I think about that and I frame that in my own business entities. Is this the best use of my life? Being the CEO of the Blue Collar Success Group and Blue Collar Elite by our vendor partner program. Yeah, right now it is 100%. And as I say, right now I'm on a 25 year plan. I've got 23 years left executing a 25 year plan to be the CEO of the Blue collar companies. As we continue to learn, as we continue to grow. Yeah, this is the best use of my time. Why? Because I've created a platform. I'm able to connect with my coaches that provide value and help people grow their companies. We connect with vendors to help them do the best thing for them. And then there's as people, people elevate their game and understand that they want a little bit more, then that's where I get to personally get involved in certain coaching groups and working with people where I'm able to go to a deeper level of consciousness. But the entities all play together. And yes, that is the best use of my life. The way that I understand it today, today on episode 152, believe it or not, do me a favor, kick this to somebody, share this with somebody. Just shoot a quick email with a link, text it to somebody, even better because then they can just go right to their platform. But do me a favor and share this because you care about people and even some of your managers, maybe you want to share this with them of like, is this the best use of my time? I keep on cleaning other people's messes up. Maybe I'm not spending the time. Is this best using my time, training my team? Well, if I don't, you know, then I'm going to keep on cleaning up whatever that is. These are incredibly powerful questions. That's what I wanted to share with you today. Kick it to somebody, share it until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you real soon. Thanks for listening.