41. The Progress Catalyst

Foreign. Hey, my friends, welcome back to Leadership in a Nutshell, where we're cracking the code of the driven mind. I am your host, Kenny Chapman. I'm super pumped today to be talking to you through episode 41, the progress catalyst. So it's super important that we acknowledge, honor, and really understand how powerful progress is to the success of our lives. And I don't mean success of just a financial measurement or, you know, a certain level of emotional stability. While those things are certainly important in life, what I'm talking about is a little bit of a deeper level and really where, you know, you get down to certain measurements that create the. The happiness that you have in your life. And I was recently doing a webinar training for a group of clients, and I was talking about joy and happiness. And today I'm going to talk to you around progress, because joy and happiness, in my world that I live in, they're not the same thing. And when I say that you might be challenged and go, well, wait a minute, you know, Webster says that they're similar, and Wikipedia has these definitions. I just want you to think about something for a minute. I believe that I can operate overall in a state of joy and be filled with joy in my life, but not be super happy in a given moment. What do I mean by that? Well, I'm a joyful person. I operate with joy. I operate with bliss. I. I believe in operating with ease, joy, bliss, glory in my life. But that doesn't mean that I just dance through the daisies all day or sit in the lotus position on top of a mountain with the sun shining on my back all day long. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is that joy is kind of an overall operating system for me. And I am grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to have the opportunity to play the game of life, however long I. I get to play it on this planet. I'm grateful for the lessons that I was taught in 2020, from the COVID era and the pandemic, and the behaviors that I learned of how people operate during stressful times, during challenging times, how I got to see it show up in myself, my emotions, those around me, those closest to me. I'm grateful for all those things. And so therefore, I was very joyful through 2020. That doesn't mean that there weren't challenges, there weren't some fears, there weren't some uncertainties, different things that came along. And what I believe that is directly tied to happiness is progress. And I believe that the more progress that we have, the happier we can become. And when I say progress, it doesn't mean that I'm just marching down the field of life. And I'm constantly accomplishing. I'm constantly driving. Yeah. Here in leadership, in a nutshell, we're sharing time together because we're trying to make sense out of this driven mind that you and I have been blessed with. But sometimes it can feel like a curse because I'm just always. My mind's always running. I'm always thinking about what's next. And therefore, I need good rituals, good routines. I need to meditate, to slow my mind down. I need to journal, to get out of my subconscious and really understand consciously what the programs are that I've been running for a long period of time. And so today, I want to really just challenge you to think at a deeper level. One of my goals of this podcast is just to give you a short moment in time, a snippet, 10, 15 minutes a week where you think about your thinking. And today I'm going to share with you a tool that I've used at Blue collar over the years, and I taught it in an acceleration event that we did back when live events were allowed. I'll say, but this is a tool that we use called the Progress Catalyst. If you want this tool, feel free to shoot me an email kennyennychapman.com and I'd be happy to get you a copy of this tool. But basically, I'm going to give you the questions that exist in this tool anyway today. So you can re listen to this and just write them down as you're going. But really, there's a few things around progress. Number one, I believe Tony Robbins said it right when he said that there are certain needs of humans. And I believe that one of those needs is progress. I think that evolution is a necessary part of don't throw Bibles at me or whatever. If you don't believe in evolution or whatever your beliefs are, I'm not here to challenge those. But when I say evolution, I mean constantly evolving as a person, as a mind, as a being on the planet, and understanding what it means to be the next version of yourself, that you were put here to be right? And so progress. I also believe that all progress begins with telling the truth. And I don't know where that first came up or where I first heard that, but I know in my life, when I'm not telling myself the truth, I can't fix anything. I can't change Anything. I can't right any wrongs. I can't improve upon any inefficiencies. If I'm telling myself a story that's not true, it's going to be hard to make progress. And so today, as I share the progress catalyst, I'm just gonna share a few different questions with you and have you write these down as we kind of go through this. And if you're in your car, if you're in the gym, just go back and write these. They'll be in show notes as well, where you can just jot these down and work through this process. So, number one, where am I experiencing the most progress right now? So in your life, if I want to be have a catalyst to my progress, which is what the progress catalyst worksheet does, or exercise, I should say does, where am I experiencing the most progress right now? And just go ahead and write that down. And then when you get that written down, because you have progress in certain areas. So that's the first thing is, where am I experiencing it? Second is, what makes this important? Why is it important to have this progress? What's important about moving the needle forward here? Once I understand that what is the support that I have or what is supporting the progress of me moving forward would be the third question to ask yourself. And then I go into maximizing momentum. So we have progress, we want to continue to get it. And the more progress we get, then we actually start building momentum. And if I think about maximizing momentum, then I'm able to ask questions like, how can I create more of this progress that's being supported and is important to me? So when you think about momentum maximizing, like, how can I create even more progress? Write that down. And then last and certainly not least, are there any additional actions that I could take? What's something that I need to do now in order to create even more? And are there any key individuals involved, any people that would be able to help me accomplish what I want to accomplish with this? And so it's super important to take a look at this from a progress standpoint and realize that progress equals happiness. And if I want to fuel my happiness, then I want to fuel my progress. And a few episodes back when I had talked about a unique advantage being your growth mindset. One of the things that we know from a growth mindset is progress is really designed around any way of moving forward. I make progress when I fail. Now let that land for a moment, my friend. I actually make progress when I fail. How I just figured out Something that doesn't work. I just took action. I sent, you know, things into the universe that went, ah, that's not how, that's not how it's going to work. Okay, cool. Now I know. To do is to know as it's been said, right? So progress is certainly important. Now. One of the big points of progress is understanding what's sucking the life out of me too. So one of the things that we do with clients is have them look at where are you just getting, you know, the life sucked out of you. What is creating a drain on your time, on your energy, on your momentum, on your progress, Right? So then we kind of flip flop this exercise and ask the same questions from a different standpoint of what is really not serving me right now. So where am I feeling the most drained or what's sucking the life out of me the most right now? Can be relationships, can be tasks, can be things at work, can be financial situation, where am I feeling and experiencing the most drain? Then the question is, what is this costing me or could be costing me? My biggest drain is communicating with my 18 year old child or my 16 year old daughter and I'm struggling with that. What could it be costing me? Could it be costing me a quality of relationship with her moving forward? How's this going to show up long term? Like what is it costing me or what it could be costing me if it's around finance? Like, man, I'm just drained. Every time I think about my financial situation, I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed with it. What is that costing me in the terms of stress affecting my health? When what is it costing me when it comes to sleep? What is it costing me with my close relationships and how I make every decision based around money now, whatever that is for us, right? Then the next thing that's important is to identify any blockers and you think about, you know, what are blockers holding me back from fixing this? What are the blockers that are stopping me from operating? I know I've had different times in my career, different businesses that I've built where certain tasks, certain activities just turned into a drain and it just went, well, wait a minute, then what am I doing? Why am I still doing this? What's a blocker that I have around this? Like, what is it? Identify it. It goes back to progress from telling the truth. That's all you're doing. You're just telling yourself the truth around something. Then we go to, all right, cool. So now I know my blocker and what really needs to Happen. What would have to happen in order to improve or make progress around this? Do I need to shut something off? I remember my own personal coach gave me an exercise around certain speaking events I was doing, certain client work that I was doing that had turned into just. It was draining me. And he said, make a list. What are they going to be? Basically, a similar way of this exercise. And what's stopping you from doing it? Once I had an understanding there. Now, what would need to happen? Well, heck, I'd have to reevaluate my schedule. I'd have to offboard some clients. I'd have to do some different things in different ways. Okay, great. Now I know. And then last, we get to action, just like we did in the progress part of the exercise. Like, what are three specific things that I could do right now to stop this drain, to eliminate the suck of my energy, of my zest for life, of my passion, whatever that is. And again, are there any specific key people involved that I need to get with? This is what we call the progress catalyst. You first start out with, you know, where am I making progress? What makes it important, what's supporting it, how can I maximize it? And what do I need to do next? Then we look at, man, what's sucking the life out of me? What's really creating my drain? And take a few minutes there and be honest with yourself. Where am I being drained? What's to. Is it people? Is it relationship? Is it finance? Is it my health? What is it? And what could it be costing me? What's the blockers holding me back? What do I need to do in order to start making some movement here? And specifically, what are some actions I can take Today? I'm your host of Leadership in a Nutshell, Kenny Chapman. I'm so honored that we have the ability to spend this time together. Thank you so much for your time investment, your commitment to show up here with us every single week. Do me a favor, share this episode with somebody. Shoot an email form, copy the link that you're listening on, and fire it away to somebody. And let's spread the wealth of feeling a little better in 10 or 15 minutes a week. Until we talk, my friend. Make it a better than fantastic week, and I can't wait to see you next time. It.