163. Observe and Reflect

Foreign Kenny Chapman here, your host of leadership in a nutshell, cracking the code. This amazing and sometimes challenging driven mind that we've all been gifted to. I used to think it was a bit of a curse, but I know it's such a gift now. Why? Because I've learned how to navigate this bad boy a little bit better. I got a long way to go, but I'm continuing to improve and continue to get better. I have a beginner's mind when it comes to understanding the way the world works, understanding my own consciousness level, understanding my inputs and outputs and what this means to me. The brain is a meaning making machine. And today, episode 163 Observe and Reflect. I want to give us a chance to kind of just take it, take a step back because, you know, think about this for a moment. Give me a head nod if life sometimes feels like it's just constantly moving too quickly. It's just going, going, going, right? Like, you know, it's just, there's not. I mean, can I get a heck yeah, right? It's like, it seems like the, the deeper we get into technology, the faster things go, the, the more chaotic things become, the more accessible we are. You know, we live in the, in the attention economy now, so everything is vying for attention and you know, the attention engineers that build product and build programs for the big companies to try to get our attention. And everything's about the click and everything's about whatever that looks like. It's freaking chaos out there, you know, and, and I just want to be a guide by your side, helping you navigate some of this chaos. And I, you know, I want to, I want you to help, help yourself find some calmness in the chaos. And there's, there's a storm out there for sure. And I'm not here to tell you there's not a storm. Heck, last week we talked about resisting things less like, you know, don't, don't resist the fact that things are speeding up. Right? I mean, things are getting faster and faster and, and the ability for us to, to be able to, you know, share time on a podcast that, I mean, that wouldn't have happened. I would have to have flown to a studio and, you know, some. Well, I guess I live in a big city now in Phoenix, but, you know, go to Los Angeles and get on a radio show or what, you know, whatever. Like everything's happening so fast and I personally believe it's incredible. I'm very grateful. I just said to the lovely Christie this morning, as a matter of fact, the time I'm recording this episode, I said, man, can you believe, like, what we've, what we get to witness in our, in our time. Like, we, we. We on our watch of the human experience when, you know, the planet's been around for 13.8 billion years, and on our little slice of time here, we. We get to watch the cell phone come and go. All, all on our watch. Like, we won't even have cell phones in the next, probably five years, maybe ten at the. Like, I'm not a predictor, but the cell phones are getting. Are. They're going to be replaced. They'll be replaced by different things, gadgets and chips in the arm and different, like, whatever it is, but. And guess what? You can resist it. When we talk about technology, it can be the best thing since sliced bread. It can be the worst thing since the devil. Like, it's all perspective and it's how you show up. But regardless of what your perspective is, life is happening faster and faster. And because of this, we're seeing mental health issues happen deeper, wider, more. You know, like, there's like, everything's happening where we're. We're the first. I heard it put this way that we're like one of the, or the only species on planet Earth that has the free will to. And the brain capability to basically intentionally destroy ourselves. Like, you know, we're. We can wreck our own planet, we can wreck our own health, we can wreck our own food supply. We can, you know, there's. There's all kinds of stuff. And I'm not saying that people are bad, people are incredible. And the same minds that created some of the challenges we're dealing with were also, We're. We're solving every, Every big challenge out there is being solved as we speak. I have 100% confidence in it that somebody said to me recently, you're, you know, my God, you and Christie are building this big, badass house in North Scottsdale. Like, aren't you worried about running out of water? I'm just like, no, I'm not. I'm just not. I'm not worried about it. Well, yeah, but what are you going to do? What, what if that happens? Well, if there's an event like that, then we'll probably lock it up and. Well, I guess we won't even probably lock it up because there won't be any. Any reason and we'll just walk away into the desert, I guess. Like, I just, I refuse to allow my mental health to go down that track. And that might be an extreme you might go, okay, Kenny, but we're talking about leadership here and we're talking about business. No, my friend, we're talking about life. And life shows up based on the perspective that you have and how you come to terms with what your reality is. Everybody's got their reality. Seven, eight billion people, people on the planet. Everybody has all of their little life experience, all of their little view of the world, all of the different things, and that creates a reality. And you have yours, and that's great. I have mine, you have yours. It's like the truth. I've always said this about the truth. There's your truth, there's my truth, and then there's the truth, and that's the reality. Because there's a fundamental law of truth, and then there's your perspective and my perspective and my God, do we get pissed off at each other if I don't see yours and you don't see mine? Right? And it's just not necessary. There's. There's no reason to continue this insanity, which is why I, I take these topics and go the way that I do on, on this podcast. So, you know, I want to share today. Observe and reflect. And I'm going to give you four things that are a very good way for you to do this. In a, In a, in a healthy way to observe and reflect. And you know, the life's going so fast, you're not going to stop life, but you can have a say. I'll say I almost use the word control. And you can, you can control how you respond to how life is showing up. Yes or no, right or wrong. Well, no, Kenny, because I got kids and. No, Kenny, because I have a business. No, Kenny, because I'm a service manager. Well, okay, then just walk away from it all you can. Happens all the time. People do it. Well, no, I. Well, yeah, you can leave your family. People do it all the time. My parents were married 11 times. People walk away. It happens. So you can, you're like, no, I can't. You can. You're. Fortunately, you're choosing not to. Okay, guess what? It's a choice. You are in control when you realize you have a choice. Now, there's a lot of things you can't control, and that is the speed of technology, what's happening, whether people show up at work, da, da da, da. You can control your policies, your different, you know, you can control a lot of that. You can control a lot of it. We talked about it a couple weeks ago, but today things are going Fast. Observe and reflect. That's what I just, I want you to just burn that into your mind. Observe and reflect. What's going on and what does this mean to me? So four areas. I'm going to just be quick with you and drop this on you. Number one, take a step back. We're in it. Like I'm so personally attached to everything that's happening and oh my gosh, this is happening. And ah, the stock market went up 200 bucks today. Oh, I'm the greatest thing ever. I'm so happy. Oh my God. The stock market dropped 300 bucks. Oh my God, it's awful. Oh, we had a great sales day. Think about that in your own business. You know, now with technology, you're, you're tracking. You know, there was a time not very long ago, by the way, you had to wait until the end of the week to know how your sales were doing. Certainly by the end of the day wasn't very long ago at all. And now it's moment by moment, it's call by call. And that's a gift. What a great thing. But you can also drive yourself insane by participating in every single bit of it. So really picking your spots and looking for. Now, am I saying don't do call by call coaching? Absolutely not. I'm not saying that. But somebody's role is that where that's what they are focused on and then they're not doing all the other things right. But if they're doing that, then you don't commit all of your time, energy and effort toward wondering about is that going right, is that, you know, all the different things. So if I feel like caught up, if I feel for me, I'll go to my solar plexus. If I, if I feel like for me I feel resistance, like build and it kind of starts coming up from my gut and it starts kind of, I can feel it, catch it right now and take a step back and observe. Okay, what's going on. For me, I take a step back. Like if I know I'm getting an overwhelm, okay, just change perspective, take a step back. Or sometimes I'll like kind of pull myself out of my body and observe myself like from up above. So I'm, I'm sitting here recording right now. I can manually just do this with me. Wherever you're at, even if you're driving, you can actually keep your eyes on the road and you can lift yourself up and kind of look at your car riding down the road. Like we have this ability, the brain's an amazing thing. And it can do this. And when it does, it changes perspective immediately. So I take a step back and kind of just get in a place to observe the situation. And then I connect with my breath. So it's like, man, this person, really, I just had this rough interaction. This person, you know, I got this bad news, I had this thing happen, or I got whatever it is, it's building up. Step back. When you connect with your breath, you're able to take your. A little bit of control over your mind. When you know, when you, you it. Breath is one of the ways that you get conscious. It's why in every meditation, most I'll say meditations, you start with some form of becoming aware of the breath. So what happens when I become aware of my breath? And I'll just say this for meditators out there or people that are working on improving your game as meditation, when you focus on your breath. One of the reasons we do that in meditation is because I'm dropping out of my head into my body. So I'm creating some space between my personal self and my. And my overall, my Christ consciousness, my soul consciousness, my. My better being, right? So, so when I. And I don't mean better as in the mind's a bad thing. The mind's not a bad thing. The mind's an incredible thing. It's an absolute gift. Just allow it to not, you know, don't be a servant to it. That's all. You know, when we, when we think about that. And so when I. When I take a step back, take a breath, and then I listen. So I'm talking today. Observe and reflection. When I say I listen, I'm talking about listening with my body. That's what I call it when it's observation. So I listen and like, that's where I can listen to God. That's where I can listen to another human. If they brought me bad news and they're talking to me or sometimes at me, because people really get wigged out. I have it with clients when they call me and they're stressed or they have a major situation happen. My job is to elevate calmness by elevating their consciousness and me being very present. If I buy into that negative energy, then I'm not helping the situation. If I realize that that negative energy have anything to do with me, even if it's directed at me. By the way, let's be clear. It's not about you. It's about whatever this person is perceiving about you. Or about whatever the situation may be. So then I listen without judgment. That's the key. Because the mind's going to want to start making up rules and things and meanings and oh, well, this or that or he said that or she said this or this is happening and the sky's falling and all the. Don't judge it. Just be mindful of it. Just pay attention to it. And then we've got to make that time for this to happen. Okay, so if I want to observe and reflect today, I just wanted to give you a few different ways and a few different strategies. One is take a step back. Another one is to kind of connect with the breath. I put these together, by the way. So you step back is like, let's start with step one would be step back. And for some of you, that's going to be enough. Just when you can break your unconsciousness, your stream of unconsciousness, when you take a step back, you get conscious and that moment you become conscious. So that's one. Another one is connecting with the breath. That takes a level of consciousness in order to go. Let me focus on my breath. Listen without judgment. That takes a level of consciousness. But if this person's coming, I'm just going to hear them out. I'm going to let them talk until they're done talking. I'm going to not make judgments or make meaning from this or decide solutions or anything until I completely hear them out. And the fourth thing, and I'm going to make this a biggie for you. It's make time for stillness. The stillness is where the peace is at. Stillness is where the happiness lives. Stillness is where the joy elevates. It's where it emanates from your being. And that's really what it's all about in leadership. You're going, dude, leadership. I'm here to learn strategies and tactics. Well, we're here to uplevel your happiness up, level your game. I believe that when you're happier, you're a better leader, Period. When you're a better leader, you get better results. So when you're happier, you get better results, you get better results, you make more money. Everybody's like, here's the deal. You're not happy because of results. You're happy because you decided to get happy. And then the results follow. Powerful, powerful realization. So make some time for stillness. And yes, I'm a fan of meditation. Anybody that's followed here for much time at all, and I don't have them off the top of my head because I didn't know I was going to say it, but go back in our. I might even be able to find it for show notes that, that, you know, put this, put the we. I've done two meditations on here where I actually guided you on them. And you don't have to listen to me. There's a million of them online. Just find something that works for you. But creating time for stillness, creating some space. You know, I, I have my bookends. I, I, in morning, I have time that I, I don't engage in any technology. I do my own rituals before Christy and I even get into any deep conversations or anything. I don't talk to my team. I don't have, like, I don't just jump in. I don't look at my phone unless it's to set up a meditation, you know, like that. This is just my own belief. And people go, my gosh, how are you able to maintain some calmness now? Because I intentionally. I'm retraining my brain. So when things get chaotic in the world, it has an association. It knows where to go. Right? It knows like, oh, wait a minute, this is getting chaotic. Well, I don't have to go get on a meditation pillow in order to find some stillness. I can still find it. I can find it in my car. I can find it at my desk. I can find it in a moment. That's the key, is creating some space. Now, many of you are like, I can't meditate. That's fine. Keep telling yourself that, and you'll never be able to. I did it for 40 years of my life, probably. I didn't, oh, I can't do it. Can't do it, can't do it. And one day I decided it's important and I've got to clear my mind. And I wasn't life or death situation, but it was recovery or not situation. And I had to get some space for my mind. And so I committed. And then I realized, wait a minute, that was a limiting belief. Do I sit down and have meditations where my mind runs like crazy? Absolutely, 100%. I had one yesterday. My mind was, like, going like nuts. Hey, I'm creating the space. And guess what time. Today I had a better one. And tomorrow, I don't know, we'll see what happens tomorrow. And by next week, I will have had seven more, and we'll see what that. Look, it's creating some space for stillness every day. You got to find yours. It's not about me and what I do. It's about you. And what you do and when you can observe, take a look around, be a little bit aware, and then reflect. What does that mean to me? How does that. How's that going to impact? How's that going to influence? What do I want to do with this? I got this information. Observe and reflect. This is going to set you free at another level, my friend. I'm so honored to spend this time with you. I'm so grateful to be with you. Episode 163 I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Until we talk, make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you next time. Thanks for being here, Sam.