156. Safety in Business and Life

Foreign. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to the show. Leadership in a nutshell. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. I want to thank you, thank you, thank you for being here. I know your, your time is so critically important and it seems like we have so little of it, which is fascinating because we all have the exact same amount of it. We have just made conscious and unconscious choices that now affect the utilization of that resource, our time. And so I know your time is important, I know your time's valuable, and I'm honored and grateful that you spend a few minutes a week with me right here today. We're Talking about episode 156, Safety in Life and business. Safety in business and Life. Either way, you want to frame it, I, I want you to have safety in both. And I just, I, you know, I realized over the last few years that I lived the bulk of my life, I'm 52 at the time of recording this, and I lived the better part of my first 50 years not feeling safe. And it's really powerful and it's really, it's, it's a trip when I think about it. And when I, when I realized that I had so much fear that just was interlaced within me. And I know I had, you know, I know I had some childhood trauma and I know that, you know, the way my father exited the planet, you know, had had an effect on me. And I know that, you know, I mean, God, now that I think about it, you know, if you think about my parents were married 11 times, I mean, how would that not have some sort of an impact? And so for me though, I'm not going to be a victim. And so I went to this whole ego based way of dealing with things and so I'm like, I'm not a victim. And oh, 11 marriages and my dad getting murdered, that none of that matters. It doesn't affect me. Like, look, I'm fine. I'm not. No, like, come on, bro, think about it a little bit. And now think about your life. And what I've learned is that trauma would that we stuff gets stuffed no matter your walk, it's part of the necessary human experience. Experience. So if you were born super rich, you have just as much trauma probably as I do. And, and if you were born and I, I, you know, I, I've never lived in the ghetto. I, I grew up wearing secondhand clothes. That's nothing like being homeless as a child. Like, I, I had it so freaking easy compared to so many people on the planet. I can't even Imagine it. And then guess what? As I say that I used to kick my own ass over that because, well, how can I have this drug issue? How can I have this drinking issue? My life was great. It's not that big of a deal. It's not that bad. And all of a sudden I'm just like, unsafe in my own skin. I don't know if any of you can relate to that, but this podcast is about me sharing my truth with you. And as I see it, with other driven leaders now, I have a heightened level of consciousness, have a heightened level of energy connectedness. So when I'm working with leaders, whether they're in my own organization, whether they're in other organizations, whether I'm having any type of human experience and interaction, I'm able to be in the energy a lot more than I used to be. And I realize a lot of us just don't feel safe. And I feel like if I put on a certain mask, then I'm going to be safe. And if I feel like I'm going to get a certain title, then I'm going to be safe. If I feel like I build a certain size of a business, I'm going to be safe. If I feel like I make a certain level of income, I'm going to be safe. If I feel fill in the blank, my friends. And that was my life for so many years. And now I want to elevate and continue. I want to grow my businesses, I want to elevate my consciousness. I want to make more money. I want to have more freedom. I want to continue to live and enjoy the greatest things on the planet earth that God has given us. But I'm not doing it trying to fill a hole anymore. I'm not doing it to try to make myself feel safe anymore. And I have to share this with you. I have to honor my truth and share this with you. Because most of us are chasing something, trying to become safe. And I heard a quote recently, sometimes I share with you kind of quotes of the week that I think of or different things. And I wanted to share this. I'm going to read this because it's short, but know I paraphrase here a lot. I'm not going to do that with this one. Safety is not about a lack of threat. Safety is the presence of connection. Let that land for a minute and maybe it's hitting you the way that it did me. And if not, that's cool, too. Please come back next week. But this is about, say, and I'm going To talk about psychological safety. There's a kind of a, a movement around psychological safety in the workplace. I'm going to get there, I'm going to share four, four keys there in just a moment. But that quote just really hit me when I think the lovely Christy and I were watching something on TV or an interview or something. And safety is not about a lack of threat. Safety is about the presence of connection. And I used to think, okay, if I have schedule freedom, then my time is not threatened. If I have money freedom, then my ability for choice isn't threatened, right? If I have relationship freedom, meaning I'm the boss and I can decide who works for me or not, then I'm going to not have, I'm not gonna be threatened by relationships, right? If I, you know, lean into a bhag kind of a purpose and I'm going to change the world and I'm going to, you know, radically improve a million entrepreneurs lives, you know, by the time I'm 65 or whatever that is, then I'm not going to be threatened that I'm not enough. And you see the difference. Rather than going, you know what, let's shift it to the connection, a presence of connection. If I have a connection to who I am at the core, my divine purpose, my divine being, my soul source, energy, I know who I am, then I know why I'm on the planet and I know my purpose. I'm connected. There is no threat, it doesn't even matter because I'm connected. And if we think about my schedule, I used to protect my schedule. I had a GM when I was an operator or at long term gm and he'd call me and go, where? What are you doing? I go, it doesn't matter. Like why are you asking? Like dude, chill out. I'm just asking why was I? Because I was embarrassed that I was on the golf course at 10, 10am on a Tuesday. Now if I'm on the golf course at 10am on a Tuesday and one of my, one of my leadership team calls like, hey, what are you doing? Hey, I'm about to hit a shot, can I call you right back? Hey, it's what it is, right? It's, it's about that transparency that we talked about last week or the week before now, you know, and, and so I just want you to think about with money, it's like, oh, well, money. If I have enough money, then I won't be threatened. Yeah, you will. I don't care how much dough you have, unless you're connected to what you can do with your money, what. What your money does for you and those around you. That's a whole different, different reality. So I just, I think it's so important because until the last few years, did I really even start toying with feeling safe in my own skin? And yet the world said, oh, well, I'm a multimillionaire. I have businesses, I have freedom. I'm all the, you know, none of those labels made me feel safe, my friend. And that's what I want you to realize today. And so when we think about it always starts with us, right? So you've got to start with yourself and find some of that safety for you. Meaning you've got to find some connectivity for you. Connection to self, connection to God, spirit, divine, the universe, whatever works for you. You've got to have a connection bigger and beyond you. In my opinion. That's my own belief. I believe you need to be connected beyond you. And then we think about our team. Once I'm there now as a leader, those around you. Are you providing safety or a safe environment? You can't create anybody to feel safe. Obviously, I just shared that. But can you create an environment for some psychological safety to exist? And there's been a lot of studies around this. And, and there's. There's one thing I was. That I recently read that said there's four keys to this, okay? So for psychological safety, there's four things that must be present. Number one to you feel included. So I want you to think about your culture. I want you to think about your team. Do people feel included? Like, you know, that's. That's some of this inclusion movement that's. That's kind of happening at the moment. Like, we just want to feel. Okay, we want to feel like, hey, whatever, whoever you are, that's fine. That's. That's totally good. Guess what? I can't feel that for you if I don't feel that about me. Okay? So I just want you to realize, however you show up on my team, that's what it's about. I got team members that have tons of tattoos. I got team members that don't have tattoos. I got team members that have long hair. I got team members that have shaved heads. I got. It doesn't matter. Show up as you. Now, if you have a dress code, if you have a uniform policy, that's part of it. That's part of your choice. You have to adhere there. You've got to do that. Yes, we have uniform policies. If you will dress Codes, I'll call it for our acceleration workshop and our, you know, different things. If you're on stage, you have certain things you have to show up, and ours is pretty tough. If you're watching on video, I got a blue collar shirt on. I'm in uniform today, baby. But, you know, it's just. It's about being included mentally, socially, psychologically. Make sure you're including your team. Okay? Number two, what has to be present is safety to learn. Okay? And again, all of these, we're going to turn to ourselves first. But for psychological safety to exist, there has to be. It's got to be safe to learn. Now, what does that mean? That means it's got to be safe to make mistakes. You've got to be able to F some stuff up and be okay. So if you're running around all bound up and all tight, and every time somebody makes a, quote, mistake or doesn't do something that fits the exact model or the training that was. That was given, and you freak out and trip out, that's not a safe environment. So you want psychological safety. It's safe to learn, which means it's safe to make a mistake. It's safe to make a mistake. It's safe to f it up sometimes, and that's okay. And I want everybody to know that. I want myself to know it first and foremost. Kenny, you're going to screw it up. You're going to screw it up royally sometimes, and that's okay as long as I learn what I can from it. Okay? So I've got to feel included myself. Connection. I've got to feel that it's safe to learn. Means I got to go make some mistakes, and that's going to be okay. Number three, it's safe to contribute for yourself, too. Not what other people want to hear, not what your ego says will make you look good, just that it's safe to contribute. You want yourself first and your team to feel that they have a voice that they can contribute here. Like, you know, even if it's things that we might not use right away today, that we might do something a little bit differently, it's okay to contribute, and it's a safe place for that. How you handle that, how you navigate that, how you communicate that, all different episodes, I'll say, right, we could record podcast episode on each and every one of those because communication is. Is paramount. If somebody brings me an idea and we're not going to use it right now, how I communicate that is very important. And their level of trust Me, my own level of vulnerability, my own belief systems, if I have a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset, if I'm rooted in scarcity of thinking versus abundant thinking, whatever that looks like, Right? So allow contribution even if you're not going to use ideas sometimes. And four, it's got to be safe to challenge the, let's say, the status quo. And so I, you know, I love it when people bring challenges because that makes me think and I think, you know, think about your own beliefs and how, you know, I was raised in fundamentalist Christianity on one side of my family, and that was one of the things that didn't work for me, is I couldn't ask questions that challenged any belief. I couldn't challenge the status quo. And I say that that was my own perception. I don't know that my mom or anybody ever said, you can't do that. That was my perception of how I felt about the church and, and different things. So I, I grew up feeling like, well, I don't know about this. If people can't answer me or give me a good reason when I challenge something, then I'm not sure how rooted they are in their own belief system. And that was something I had the opportunity to work through as I got older and more conscious and, and studied different religions and understood different things from different ways. And I, I have my own belief system now, and that's mine, and it works. But if you want to challenge it, if you want to ask questions, let's have a conversation. It's okay to challenge the status quo. Me first. I got to challenge myself. I've got to challenge my own thinking, my own beliefs, and then I've got to allow others to do the same. If leaders are too fixed mindset, we're not willing to include others in thoughts and decisions and choices. We're not willing to say, hey, it's okay to make mistakes. We're not willing to allow others to contribute, and we're not willing to allow challenging of the status quo for psychological safety to exist. These are studies that exist. I'm just here to share some information with you, for you to make your own judgment, your own thought, your own takeaways. But think about that a little bit, and let's tie all the way back. I'll get you out of here. But safety is not a lack of a threat, but it's the presence of connection that is so freaking powerful, my friend. How can you connect more in business, at home, with your spouse, with your children, with your peers, with your friends? With your spirit, with your connection with God, with the divine, with your church, with your community. It's about connection. I spent most of my life feeling unsafe. Now I feel incredibly safe. I feel incredibly connected. And I want you to feel that too. I can't do it for you, but I can share some info with you. Thank you so much for being out here. Episode 155 and do just share this with somebody, email it to somebody, kick it to somebody, give us a rating, a review, some way to help us grow this community. Until we talk, make it a better than fantastic week and I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here.