47. Allowing the Empowering Struggle

Foreign. Hey, my friends, welcome back to Leadership in a Nutshell, where we're cracking the code of the driven mind. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman, and today you're with me for episode number 47, allowing the empowering Struggle. And as I say that, I was on the fence of how to name this episode, because what I wanted to say was embracing the empowering struggle. But I know some of us aren't quite ready to embrace a struggle. What? Are you crazy? Kenny, come on. I'm trying to eliminate struggle from my life, and I want to empathize with you, and I want to honor that. And so that's why I really just talk first about. Let's kind of get some clarity today around allowing the empowering struggle, because there are struggles in life, there are struggles in leadership, there's struggle in business, relationships, all those things. And I'm going to touch on a few of those today with you. But I want to be just super clear and transparent. I'm always transparent with you, as a follower, as a listener, as a fan, as a client, whoever you are in my life, I'm honored to serve my part of the relationship. And one of those areas that I serve is through transparency. And the longer you're with me here, the more you'll see this. And to stick with me, please go ahead and make sure you're subscribed to our podcast. Give it a like, and I'd love to have a review. It'd really help me out if you would just give me a quick one sentence, if you would. That. That'd be amazing. But nonetheless, I spent a lot of my life working to eliminate struggle. I grew up in a lot of pain. I was challenged a lot. I was the short fat kid in school. You know, the normal broken home thing. It's like that. That's just life, right? I mean, most of us are. Are used to broken homes, multiple marriages of parents, different things moving, all the different things. And so I'm not here to share anything about, oh, poor Kenny. Woe is me. What I am here to do is realize that all of us had some struggle growing up. And I think it makes normal sense in human nature to want less of that, right? I mean, isn't that the whole point is that we evolve as human beings to learn? I mean, last episode, I was talking about, you know, maximizing a learning experience. And so if there's going to be struggle in my life, then I want to make sure that I learn from it so I can take on different struggle. And that's why today I want to really zero in on an empowering struggle. But as I do that, I want to honor. Like I said, I tried to eliminate struggle in my life. And I'm going to share a little bit more of how this really looks for you in a moment. But I also want you to remember episode 10, I talked about how to use resistance to your advantage. So if you're newer to the podcast or, heck, that was 37 episodes ago, go back and re listen to the resistance. You know, utilizing, I should say, resistance to your advantage and just kind of thinking through that. Because today when we talk about struggle, there's all kinds of different labels and categories and psychologists and psychiatrists have all, you know, this, this in the brain. And here's where I'm at. I'm about simplicity. You know that I'm about the tools and the labels that work. I'm a blue collar guy with a, with a simple mind that gets massive results. And one of the ways I do that is by just speaking my truth into my existence, my world and what I want and helping clients do the same. I believe there are two types of struggle. There are empowering struggles and there are destructive struggles. Can you relate? Give me a head nod. If we were on video, you'd be going, yeah, no doubt, brother. You're right. I know for me, my friend, I spent many, many years in a massively destructive struggle. And as I got older, I realized that I, maybe I'm not trying to eliminate all struggle in my life. Maybe I'm working to eliminate the destructive struggle. But the younger or less experienced Kenny Chapman wasn't really clear on there were differences. And so what I want to eliminate is the destructive struggle of growing up with very low self esteem, growing up with believing that I was destined to be fat, believing I was destined to be broken, believing that life is supposed to be super, super hard. See, when I talk about an empowering struggle, I'm not talking about life being hard. I'm talking about allowing it. Here in today's episode, I'm going to also encourage you to move to a place where you can actually embrace it, because struggle is life. And you go, oh, wow, Kenny, I thought you were a motivational guy. Let me hire you for my next keynote as your from your speaking side of the business. Let me go ahead and read your next book as soon as I can, you know, and if you haven't read Six Dimensions of Change 2.0, I would encourage you to get in there because I do share some of the struggle that I Had as I gained clarity and challenge habits, work through action, never giving up around gratitude and enthusiasm. But I really, you know, I realized that struggle is necessary and, and here's where I want you to really zero in today. I want to share kind of an experience that recently happened to us. As I mentioned last episode, I was in Costa Rica for almost a month and I'm going to share some, obviously some stories and experiences that happened over the next couple of episodes with you because it was very impactful to my life and I'm able to see clarity Sometimes maybe it happens for you when you're walking down the beach, when you're meditating, when you're. And the thing is, I had the same meditation experience in Costa Rica that I do in my home here in Scottsdale. I mean, it's the same experience. I don't need to go get on a plane and go to a different beach somewhere though I love it. Don't get me wrong, I'll be going again to different beaches in July or whatever as the world unfolds and allows us to travel and different things like that. But here's what I want you to really write and if you're taking notes, write this down. Love and respect yourself enough to seek the struggle. And I would say seek the empowering struggle. See, what I know is that I actually love and respect myself enough that I will look for things that stretch me, I will look for things that grow me. I decided to turn blue collar into a market leading entity because I knew that I would grow as a CEO. I knew that bringing in a president to run the day to day operation would challenge me and challenge the company and challenge the team. And those are growth struggles that I want, that I'm actually seeking now in the midst of it. And sometimes when emotions are involved you might go, ah man, I don't want this. But really maybe you do. And maybe you ought to honor yourself and love yourself and respect yourself enough to look for what those are. Maybe when you and your spouse have a challenge, maybe there's an empowering struggle there of the two of you getting to clarity. You know, I've worked with a client recently around an intimate relationship of how communication just hasn't been very truthful, if you will. Not that they're lying to each other on any stretch or anything like that, but maybe just haven't been quite as transparent as I could be in the relationship. Though we've been together a long time now, we're all of a sudden it's a new learning curve like, wait a minute, I didn't know you felt that way. And so where else do you have that? What about with teams? See, as leaders, we have the opportunity to seek and allow empowering struggles in many different categories capacities in our life and business situations. How about with team? Where are empowering struggles with team? How about with your children? There are empowering struggles with your kids. What about parents? This is something that sometimes we don't think about. But you know, as those of us. My father's been gone for many, many years. My mother's still alive. I have both of my in law on Christie's side. They're alive and kicking well and you know, what about an empowering struggle with those relationships? And if you're a leader that isn't the CEO or the quote unquote highest person in the, in the org chart or whatever, what about your boss? What about who you report to? Do you sometimes need to allow them to go through an empowering struggle? I know my team will sometimes like, you know, maybe they don't come out and tell me, but they're like, yeah, he needs to, he needs to go through this. He'll, he'll come around or he'll come back around. And maybe you need to do that with your own quote, boss or who you report to. And so one of the challenges, you know, that I, that I think is we don't seek them out for ourselves. And the second thing. So love and respect yourself enough to seek them out now. Love and respect those that I mentioned, Team, kids, parents, bosses. Love and respect them enough to allow them to have their own empowering struggle. See, in the free world, what we've done is we've worked really hard to eliminate all, all struggle. And there's different things showing up, whether it's through government, whether it's through programs, whether it's through different. We're trying to eliminate all struggle for people. And that is a recipe for disaster. We need struggle to grow in our lives and how we frame it is massively important. Now when I was a drinker, when I was partying, when I created a ton of, of destructive struggle, there's no question about if I was out late or having too many drinks at night and then I'm speaking or training or flying or working or whatever it is the next day, that is destructive struggle. But if I'm up journaling and I'm working through a thinking process and maybe I don't get the same, you know, eight hour nice night of sleep or seven hours that I generally get or whatever. Maybe, maybe there's an empowering struggle going on that I need to allow. Which is it for you, for yourself and those around you? The challenge as driven leaders. Here we are on leadership in a nutshell and the subtitle is Cracking the Code of the Driven Mind. Because you as a driven minded leader, you might be a fixer, right? You're a problem solver, you're a people pleaser, you like to fix things, you like to eliminate pain. I know one of the number one things that I work to do is eliminate pain in my own life and others lives. And if we kind of interject pain for struggle, then I'm eliminating opportunity for people to grow. That leads to codependent relationships. And I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in powerful, independent thinking and loving relationships where we stand on our own, where we come together united to build incredible things together. And that's what you can do in your family and in your businesses, with your peers, with your parents, with your children. All of these things are amazing. But if we eliminate struggle, what else do we eliminate? We eliminate some lessons, we eliminate some growth. Ultimately we eliminate life. If you're going to be on the planet, you're going to deal with some struggle. The time I'm recording this, we have to wear masks. It's about everywhere we go. I don't like it, but however, if I'm alive, I'm going to struggle with. I got to wear a mask every day right now. I don't know if it'll last the rest of our lives or it'll be gone by the time this episode airs very shortly. But don't think that's going to be the case. But nonetheless, my point is like, hey, you're going to have struggle. And so let's frame it. Let's seek out what we truly want, right? So it's fascinating. The lovely Christy and I back in 07. I think I've mentioned on this podcast before, we took a, a six and a half month motorhome trip. We're right on the verge of getting back into the RV game. I'm, I'm super excited. We're not going to go with a massively big coach again. We're going to go a little smaller this time around. But you know, it's funny and we're not going Van Life by any means, but we're going to go a lot smaller. And the reason I bring up the Van Life, hashtag Van Life and some of you binging Netflix know there's like These little, you know, fantasy, if you will, episodes or documentaries. Oh, Van Life's amazing. This and that. Those of you that have RV before, you know, that's not just a fantasy, but, you know, the tiny home movement. There's another one. I'm going to eliminate struggle from my life because I'm not going to have a house payment. I'm not going to have a house that has maintenance and all those things. And. And so I want you to just think for a moment as the thought process, as a driven leader. Go with me on this real quick journey today. So let's say that I've got a, you know, I've got a big house and I've got a yard that needs to be taken care of. And I get frustrated because I lose a plant here and there or whatever, and I go, like, all right, cool. I'm. I just. I want to get. Eliminate my big yard. I don't want the hassle. I don't want the headache. So I'm going to downsize. Okay, cool. I downsize from my big house to a smaller yard. Trust me, the lovely Christy and I have a. Have a small yard now here in Scottsdale, and we still have some struggle with plants here and there and landscapers and, you know, housekeepers that maybe don't get it right all the time. Whatever. Right? So I go, all right, cool. Then I don't want to. I don't want to have the. The struggle of dealing with hiring landscapers or getting them to do, you know, replace a plan. Okay, cool. So I'm going to not be a homeowner anymore then. How about that? I'm going to. I'm just going to rent. So I'm going to sell my house and sell everything and put the money in the bank, and now I'm just going to rent. Okay, now I've eliminated my struggle. Oh, have I? Because now I'm going to call my landlord, and I'm going to get my landlord to call the landscapers or to call a plumber heating, an air tech or electrician, carpet clean. Now I'm going to have a struggle of dealing with my landlord, right or wrong. And then here's where this Van Life and tiny home movement comes in. Like, oh, well, you know what? I'm going to eliminate struggle from my life, and I'm just going to go to Van Life. I'm going to sell everything. I'm going to buy a 1974 VW bus, and I'm going to go live on the beach in Costa Rica. Why Do I say that? We saw this couple living in their van on the beach. Like, oh my gosh, it's so sexy. It's so amazing. That would be incredible. And fortunately, I'm smart enough to realize I've been there, done that. I did it in a 40 foot quad slide motorhome. And it's not all it's cut out to be. And what was hilarious is Christy and I were walking into town. We were in Tamarindo, Costa Rica, and we were walking from our place into town one day. And the guy that live in this van life, he had the entire wheel off of the van and was repacking like bearings or something in it, this and that. And I share a lot of my thinking process and the tools that I build and the work that I do. Christy is the strategic advisor in the Chapman companies and she does most of her work with this crazy, driven entrepreneur you're sharing time with right now. And I bounce a lot of things off of her. And I said, look at that. We're working to eliminate struggle in our lives. And we can go all the way down to where we're living in a van on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and we still got to take care of stuff. Life has struggles in it. If we want to call them struggles, I would call them experiences. What if we're not allowing the empowering struggle, but we're allowing the empowering experience? What if we're embracing the empowering struggle, which means we're embracing the empowering experience? That's what it's all about. As long as you are taking breaths, my friend, as long as you are alive, you are going to have experiences that many people label as struggles with, which turn into understanding, which turn into life lessons, which turn into knowledge. And when you apply it, your life changes forever. And that is what it's all about, my friend. Don't eliminate struggle. Eliminate your lack of honoring the experiences that you have. Eliminate the not learning from the experiences like we talked about last week, and make sure that you get all you can from all you experience. Sorry, I ran a little longer. I'm fired up and I love this stuff. Please make sure you like it. Review it. Subscribe to us. I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. Episode 47 allowing the empowering Struggle. We'd love to hear from you. Give us a review. Stay in touch until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week. See you real soon.