157. Remaining Calm in the Storm

Foreign. Hey, my friend. Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. I want to thank you so much for being here. Episode 157, remaining calm in the Storm. There is so much chaos going on. There is so much negativity, There is so much fear, there's so much scarcity, there's so much worry, there's so much concern. Now, I'm not here to minimize any of that. Everything that Everybody feels is 100% real. It's 100% real to them. It's 100% real from their perspective. We've all heard the old cliches and adages that your perspective creates your reality. It's true. It's what you're looking at is where your reality comes from. And I'm not here to minimize that in any way, shape or form. My job, my goal, my responsibility with this podcast is to show up once a week and give you an opportunity to, one, take a step back, Step out of your mind and into your greatness. Step out of your mind from the doer, the thinker, the engaged role into an observer and a learner for a moment and just kind of think through like, okay, is this. Am I on the right track? Let me just check myself. Let me do a pit stop, if you will, for 10 or 15 minutes here and check in with myself when we drop these every single Tuesday. So remaining calm in the storm, the storm is real, and the storm is real based on your equipment. So when we, you know, you picture getting in a boat and going out in the ocean, and depending on the size of the vessel and the quality of the boat is very much going to be indicative of how comfortably you might navigate the storm and how calm you might be in that storm. Now, this has nothing to do with the size of your business. When I talk about the size of the vessel, what I want to talk about is the level of your confidence. And so what comes into mind? Well, in challenging economic times or downturns in economy or different things, there's confidence cash, right? And I talk about confidence cash as an asset on the balance sheet beyond the cash that's on the balance sheet. When I think about my confidence cash, it's not about how much cash that I have, though, that is important, but confidence cash comes from my confidence to be able to create cash if I need so. Right. So when I talk about weathering a storm, it's about my confidence in the vessel. It's the confidence in my ship. Whether I, you know, whether my. My ship is a $500,000 ship or a $20 million ship or a $200 million ship, doesn't matter because each one of those ships has different levels of confidence. It has different levels of trained crew, different levels of way to navigate the storm, all those different types of things. But I, I think about, you know, the lovely Christy and I, we did a few oceanic cruises, kind of a luxury cruise line. Mid, mid level ships, I'd say mid size ships, I don't know, not, not the massive, like Disneyland at sea type, but just a, you know, really nice. I mean they have four, you know, four restaurants, maybe a couple different bars, a little tiny casino, different, different stuff like that little theater, but not multiples and all those types of things. Just a, a higher end kind of a, you know, less, less. What do I want to say? I don't know, maybe less family oriented. I don't know how to say that. Not a lot of kids on these cruises, I guess, right. But, but, but so we, we were on one of these years ago and, and I remember Christie saw it coming and I, I, I didn't see it, but I was in, I was in the gym, like, I'll, I can picture it, I was on, in the gym doing sit ups, when all of a sudden this like swell hit, hit the side of the boat and it, and it dumped like this whole freeway rack like fell over in the, in the ship. Like it came down and I was able to like scoot out of the way and this whole thing dropped and it was like, oh my gosh, it was, it was chaos on a ship this size to have that happen. I remember Christie was on a treadmill or an elliptical, I forget which, but she was looking out the window that direction and could like kind of see it building. Was like having that oh shit moment, like this thing's coming at us and I think about, okay, that ship, it was able to navigate it fine. I'm sure the, the captains were doing the best they could to figure it out. And it's kind of no harm, no foul, nobody really got hurt. It, you know, it broke some glass and knocked some stuff down throughout different parts of the ship. But at the end of the day, not a big deal, right? Wasn't the Titanic. So everybody wins, right? So, so, but I think about that if we were on a 20 foot ski boat, that's a different reality, right? And so I want you to think about remaining calm in a storm comes from you, your own conditioning and how you've learned as you navigated storms. So, you know, as you as whatever your experience that you're having right now and whatever storm you're having, it's the exact experience you're meant to have. And I had a very challenging experience during the 2008-2011, say, kind of economic challenges and turmoil and different things. I wasn't cash heavy at the time. I was fairly leveraged and some different things, and I had some challenges and I learned a ton. And I learned that I don't want to have to learn those things again. So now I have a very different cash position. I have a very different reality of debt to income and different things like that, whatever. And so that's all just to say, because however you bring that personal of you to the dance impacts how easily it is to remain calm. Now, don't get me wrong, there are, there are maybe people that are wired that can be, you know, 120% leveraged and still remain calm. I haven't met them. I don't know who they are because I think it shows up. Yet you, you can look calm, but inside you're just, you know, going, going like crazy. And that's how I used to be. I used to appear calm, but I was ate up inside. And so I drank and smoked and did different things to try to, you know, keep, keep it away. And now what I want you to realize, wherever you're at, it's perfect, it's okay. And I'm not minimizing any challenge you're having, but I want you to think about being rooted in gratitude. Be grateful for the opportunity to be alive. You're, you're on this planet, you had the opportunity to be born as a human. You're in the United States, Australia or Canada. If you're listening to this probably is that most of our, our listenership is, so you were born in a phenomenal country, or you get to live in a phenomenal country and you get an opportunity to play the game of life. And so as a leader, people are looking for you to keep them calm because they're running around like crazy and they're not sure what's going on. That's the whole point of leadership. That's why we cast vision, so people have something to buy into and believe into and breathe their belief into, if you will. And so that's where I just, I want you to think about, you know, just, ah, it's all going to be okay. It's A John Paul DeJoria quote, right? In the end, everything's going to be okay. If it's not okay, it's not the end. Now, I'm not trying to fast forward to the end of life, but that's a reality. You know, we're all not, we're not getting out of here alive. We're all going to die. And so why, like, run around all stressed out and in chaos all the time? Until that happens, let's learn, let's handle each situation as that situation, not jumping ahead and future stress or past stress. I think it was last week that I talked about that Mark Twain quote, you know, that I've had a whole bunch of bad things happen or a lot of terrible things happen, you know, in my life. And some of them actually happened or, you know, it's like we make up so much stuff. So what we're dealing with now, deal with what we're dealing with and learn what we can. So let me give you just a couple of things to think about. Number one, get rooted in gratitude. Be grateful for your happiness, your health. If you're not very happy, then go to health. If you're not very healthy, then go to relationships. If you have crappy relationships, then go to site. If you're watching this, you can see me. If you're listening to this, you can hear me. That is something to be grateful for. If I took that away and gave you a bunch of dough, you'd probably be like, damn it, I want to trade. So that's the thing. It's about comparison. It's about wanting something we don't have is usually where a lot of frustration and pain comes from. Hard to be calm if I'm frustrated and in pain. That's all there is to it. So find as low as you've got to, go as deep as you've got to get. Find some gratitude. So go there first. Second, be careful with your what if scenarios. Like what if this happens? What if that happens? What now? I'm all about running scenarios. I have clients run pro con lists all the time. Like pros of this happens, cons of this. If I take this action, what are the pros? What are the consultants? Like, that's one thing, but the 3am mindset running on the. The squirrel cage of, well, what about this? What if this happened? What if this bill passes? What if these taxes get raised? What if this caddy, what if this might. Ah, no, minimize those. Be prepared, be ready. But minimize your what ifs. Change your physiology. If you're having a hard time remaining calm, move sometimes, you know, when we're not calm, it's just simply a. We have Too much stuff going on inside, you know, and I'm, and get to the gym. But get to moving your body, whether it's at the gym, whether it's outside, we're coming into, you know, depending on where you live, hopefully you're getting to be better weather. I know in Arizona it's warming up. That's what it's all about. You know, we're already starting to, to warm up in, in April in Arizona. It's a wonderful thing. But I like to be outside. I like to hike, I like to, to do those things. But if it's, you know, sometimes I'll go to the gym anyway and I'm. Even if none of that's in your cards, just move your body, get up, walk around. Like, you know, just, just do that. Just get some physiology. It helps to calm the mind. Self care. I want to, I want you to think about that before we get out of here. Yes, I talk about it a lot. Yes, it's the seventh law of the, of the success laws, the, the book that I wrote. But you know, I, I talked about movement, meditation or prayer. What I want to call is mindset disconnect or mental disconnect, whatever that is for you. For me, meditation works great, but don't set yourself up for, you know, judgment or kicking your own butt. I can't tell you how many people I come across to go, I can't meditate. I used to think that too, but actually I'm really good at it and my mind runs more often than not, but I'm really good at it. Why? Because I do it every day. That's all it does. Some days it's amazing. Some days I'm like, okay, I guess that just happened. It's about the methodology and it's about making it that you're worth it. Your own self care is worth it. You are a priority and I want you to lean into that. How are you sleeping? That was one of the last. Even after I got sober, I struggled with. I slept phenomenal for the first year and then my mind started kind of creeping back into different things and then I'd have the 2am Wake up and instead of, you know, the what it used to have happen with like cold sweats or different stuff, like you know, my mind going crazy, fear and anxiety. I just have different thoughts, running or whatever. I just, I committed to sleeping better and so I started eliminating caffeine late in my day, implemented that digital sunset where I shut stuff down earlier in the, in the evening time. Different things like that journaling, getting things out of my head and making sure that I set myself up for sleep. So whatever it is for you, if I'm all wound up, if I'm all caffeinated, if I don't have a lot of sleep, it's hard to be calm. If I'm over leveraged with debt and I'm worried about cash personally, then I worry about cash more. In the business, it's hard to be calm. Just be mindful of these things. And if you're not in that place right now, that's okay. Just be aware of it and realize I'm going to learn everything I can. I'm going to get through this in order to share my truth with myself and my family at a different level. Because what do we know? This too shall pass. Whatever your storm is, whatever you're dealing with, remaining calm is key. So here's what I want you to do. Something that I work on a lot. It's stop, look, listen, and then respond in flow. Okay? So something happens, I get bad news, I get negative news. Something happens in the business, whatever it is, first stop. Just stop what you're doing. Stop the mental, stop the mind running. All right? Just look around a little bit. Listen. Now when I say listen, I want you to listen with your ears and I want you to listen with your body, listen with your heart. There could be trauma, there could be pain, there could be struggle, there could be frustration, there can be fear, all those things. But I want you to stop, look around, listen, feel it, honor it, breathe and respond and flow. Flow my divine connection. This universe is working perfectly. I don't understand the struggle that I'm having right now. I don't know why it's happening. I'm not going to be a victim about it and question God and everything else that this shouldn't be happening. And I've worked so hard and I've done so many things and nothing ever goes my way. I'm not going there. But I know there's something bigger happening. And I have a personal belief that I hope at some point in your life you'll adopt just for your own peace of mind. Everything is here to help me. Everything. Every challenge that I have, every negative quote, negative interaction. I. It's. Everything's here to help me. And when I, when I embrace that, then I can be a lot more calm and I can realize, man, this. This doesn't feel good. I would not choose this right now in any way, shape or form. But I'm going to respond with my divine flow. I'm going to respond in connection. I'm going to respond from gratitude, from loving kindness, from empathy for compassion, for myself, for those around me, for whatever it is. I can remain a lot more calm when I'm coming from this. See how my voice even changed? See how my physiology changed when I stop, look, listen from ears through body, feel it breathe and respond and flow. All you can do is all you can do. Just make sure you do all you can do. I forget who said that, but I love that quote. I used to say that from stage all the time. I should remember who it is. That shows you that I don't overly prepare for this podcast because I don't have notes on who said that, but it's a great one. So just remember, just bring your best and just do it each and every day, every moment. How can you heighten the energy of any situation? Starts with you. I'm here for you. If you're in the service business, we got a team of coaches that are here for you, whatever that looks like. Myself, my team, our energy, our consciousness, we're all here for you. And do the just share this episode with somebody. Give us a like a rating review, all that happy stuff. But until we meet again, my friend, be in flow and have a better than fantastic week and I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here so much. I appreciate you. Sam.