55. Are You Certain or Confident

Foreign. Hey, my friend, Kenny Chapman here, your host of leadership in a nutshell for home service. I want to welcome you Back to episode 55, are you certain or confident? Those are two different things, my friend. And today we're going to lay down what that difference is and why it's important and what it means to you and how you can become a better leader for your home service company, for your team, for your, the strategic partners you work with, for everybody that you impact and influence. This is a very important thing. So first thing I want to kick off with is, you know, when we think about confidence and certainty, we look at history, right? We look at our own personal history. Are we self confident? Do we have healthy self esteem? There's some different things. Now I want you to beware of this certainty thing because certainty can be a little bit dangerous. And I'm going to share a little bit more about that as we take our walk together here today. And I was recently exposed to some, maybe, maybe everybody on the line listening knows about this concept, but I hadn't heard of a thing called revisionist history. And so I'm studying some history right now about like how, how the United States was formed, how basically all of North America came to be populated and different things like that between the US and Canada and Mexico and some different things that have taken place. And in this, I've been studying history, there's this kind of concept called revisionist history. And basically what that is is that I'm going to remember it the way that I want to remember it. And it may or may not have actually kind of happened that way, but it's different things, different thoughts, different ways. And so I want you to be mindful of your own revisionist history about yourself. So studies have proven that every time I recall a situation from my past, it changes. So I want you to think about your childhood and have you ever driven by the home that you grew up in or the home that you spent some time with as a child and in your mind you just remember it's this old man, this big house and we had this huge living room and it's where, you know, me and my sister played. And then my room was downstairs and her room was upstairs. And like this must have been a huge house. And then I go drive back by it and I'm like, oh my gosh. It was three stories, but it was like 200 square feet per story. We lived in like 6 or 700 square feet. And it's like, holy cow. In my mind I recalled it differently than it actually was. And next week, I'm going to come to you and we're going to talk about truth and deception in leadership. So I want you to just kind of think about when you recall history, make sure that you're being as factual and truthful as you can be. Both ways. Either it was worse than it was, or it's better than it was. Either way can be a little bit different or dangerous. But I want you to remember, you know, one of those things I've heard talked about. I say it often like, you know, it's one of those deals where some people are born on third base and they think they hit a triple, and that is a dangerous place to come from. And if you're in a leader and you've kind of caught a good run and the market's been pretty solid, and our entire industry was very blessed by Covid, and I'm not minimizing any of you that struggled out there, but most of the home service industry has done exceptionally well, which has also given some false certainty possibly to some days ahead and some different things that we have. So just remember, there's a big difference between being confident and being certain. And so, you know, if I'm confident, I know that I'm. That I'm fallible. I know I can make a mistake. I know that I will make decisions with imperfection. It's one of the reasons probably that I hammer progress, not perfection, literally. In our conference room at headquarters, we've got an art piece that one of our clients sent us that says progress over perfection on it, because I beat that so much. And this is actually one of the most dominant companies in the country that subscribe to that belief. And as they continue to grow, it's not about being perfect. It's about making some progress. So the challenge is that a leader that is 100% certain ignores information. So if I'm certainty, if I have 100% certainty, I'm not willing to look at any different things. And I think it's important that when we have beliefs or we're 100% certain about something, that we at least take time to question them. We at least take time and make sure that I'm not in confirmation bias, as we call it in psychology, where it's like, oh, yeah, no, I'm just. I know it's this way. And I'm going to surround myself with people that think like me and situations that reinforce that, whether it's good or bad or whatever. So if I'm too certain, I'M not going to pay attention to, to triggers in the marketplace, to indicators from my team or coaches sometimes that are saying, hey, by the way, you might want to be mindful of this team leader. You might be careful about this manager. You might watch out for this salesperson. You might, whatever it is, if you're too certain, you're going to put blinders on, if you will. So I want you to be mindful of that because as a leader, when you're creating change, so we've got our certainty, we've got our confidence, uncertainty comes into play, too. We'll talk about that in a few minutes. But you're going to meet resistance, right? And at the time we're recording this, I'm recording my, or I'm writing, I should say my next book, which is going to be about home service leadership specifically. And I'm going to share with you seven principles that work with clients that we operate with in home service. And so as I think about the writing recently that I was doing, it was around this whole resistance concept. You're going to meet resistance, but once you work through it, are you confident or are you certain? That's the key. So if you're good at sales and you're a leader, you'll get your team to buy in, right or wrong. Like, it's like, okay, I might have to work here, I might have to tweak here, might have to ask certain questions in certain ways, but I'll get them on my side. I'm confident about that. But once that happens, you become so certain that you're not willing to listen and be mindful. Now, being certain is not. Or confident, I should say, doesn't mean that I'm constantly questioning myself or I don't believe in myself or I lack self confidence or self worth. I'm just saying that be mindful because I'm a big proponent of confidence. I talked about it last week about confidence cash. If you missed that episode, make sure you go back. Maybe you need to re listen to that episode where, you know, I was talking about self confidence at a point when I was sharing stress management strategies and different triggers for emotional regulation. But what's interesting is lack of confidence definitely is a challenge for leaders. But what's even more interesting is the leader with 100% certainty is so afraid of failure because when they fail, they'll blame something. They'll blame someone, they'll blame their team, they'll blame the environment, they'll blame the economy, they'll blame something out there. And so I want you to think as leaders in home service, our team is looking for us to guide them, to lead them. Not to be perfect, not to have everything nailed down and know exactly what's going to happen every moment of every day. Everybody knows that's not reality, but here's what is reality. Confidence is inspiring. And so when we think about, you know, passion and certainty, don't confuse the two. When you think about confidence and certainty, don't confuse the two. When you think about certainty and enthusiasm, don't confuse the two. Because here's the reality. If I'm confident, then I'm inviting my team in, I'm inviting the, if I'm in sales, I'm inviting the client in. If I'm leading change, then I'm inviting the opposition in, if you will. Confidence can be variance. It can open the conversation, right? And so when I believe that the stronger leader you become, that's all result of the people that you surround yourself with, the who's on your team. My mentor, Dan Sullivan, wrote a book called who, not how. Great book. I talk about who before how, but after why. I've got to have my why nailed. I've got to know the purpose of what I'm trying to accomplish. Whether it's a project or a 25 year vision that I have either one. I need a why, then I need a who before I decide how it's going to happen. That's just how I choose to lead the organizations that, that I am involved in leading. And so if I go, hey, cool, I'm, I'm confident, I want to hear listening or I mean, I want to invite people into the conversation, people will listen, maybe they'll give feedback, they'll jump in some of those different types of things. Certainty, however, excludes people. If I'm looking to try to get somebody to, to help me in collaboration, if I'm confident, then people want to come around me. If I'm certain, then there's no room for new ideas. Does that make sense? Give me a head shake. Even though we're on a podcast right now, right? So be careful with your certainty because at the end of the day, what do we know? There's, there's a story around that, like, you know, it's like, oh, wait a minute, you know, hang on. Like, it's just one of those things. If I'm too certain, I put blinders on. However, if I'm confident, then I'm able to really be able to open myself up and realize there's an effort there for Me personally, I know I had this experience when Covid first hit back last year when it was like, oh, my gosh, what's happening? I'm the guy that said we'll never cancel a live event for anything. It's going to happen. So I'm. I'm streaming live, saying, we're not canceling event. This thing's heating up this and that. But we're still having our, you know, we had like four academies in five weeks scheduled or some crazy thing at blue collar when that took place. And I'm out there going, no, we're not canceling anything. No, we're going to move forward. And the next thing I know the ne. Literally, like the next day, I'm like, oh, it's become illegal. Like the. Literally, we've got to change our game. And so I'm going, okay, we're not having these live academies. So we made some shifts, and through that uncertainty, we completely remodeled, refaced, remade, re, changed all the different things of offerings for our clients, for our members. We really dug deep. And so when I got in front of my team, I said, here's what I do know. We're going to fast forward, and this will be one of the greatest things that ever happened to blue collar as a business and. And this team. And what I know is that will happen. What I don't know is anything that's going to happen between now and then, I'm completely uncertain. The world is uncertain. I don't have any certainty to offer you, but I got a ton of confidence. I believe in myself and I believe in each of you. And we did just that. And we were able to offload some talent that wasn't on board with us. We were able to acquire some phenomenal talent through this process and. And really up level everybody's opportunity to play the game full out. And so what about you? When you think about, you know, how does uncertainty serve me? Uncertainty opens doors for people. My friend. I was recently working with a client that was talking about vulnerability. You know, again, give me a little a hand wave, if you will, of like, you ever feel vulnerable, I'm going to go, yeah, I feel vulnerable sometimes. When. Well, we're taught as leaders that we're not supposed to be vulnerable. And I'm a guy that I cry in front of my team all the time. I'm not saying that's the right thing. I'm just saying I'm authentic and I'm truthful and I'm a very emotional person. And if I've Got passion, and it's built up and wrapped up inside. Sometimes it comes out in tears. Whatever it is what it is, if they can't handle it, they can find another leader, because that's who I am. It's my authenticity. It's my reality. Now, there's times for that. I didn't come in and cry when Covid hit because it's like, hang on, wait a minute. As a matter of fact, I didn't cry at all when that happened, saying that, you know, the reality is vulnerability builds strength. And so I was talking to this client about, well, what are you really feeling vulnerable right now? Well, man, I got this service manager that's. That's got a ton of talent, but I'm really worried if he moves on, if he leaves me, I'm going to be very vulnerable. I'm going to be very stuck, I'm going to be very challenged, and all these different types of things. And so I said, well, let me ask you a question. Have you shared that with him? Well, what do you mean? I'm not going to share? What if you had a conversation with him and just spoke your truth? And what's fascinating, my friends, is he ended up doing that very thing. And they had a phenomenal conversation that literally took their. Not just their own personal relationship, their business relationship. The service manager got a whole new level of confidence from the courage that the owner of the business shared. Built up like, whoa, wait a minute, I've got more to offer here than I even realized in that manager. Now they're killing it at a whole new level with results. And am I saying it's because of that vulnerability by embracing uncertainty? You better believe I am, my friends. I believe that it's about confidence, not certainty or uncertainty. But when you lean into uncertainty, people respond, look at the. At the human level. We're smart enough to know, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't know what's going to happen. People thought like, oh, no, you know, I had all kinds of certainty before COVID Did you really? People had a lot of uncertainty in 2006 and 2007 about real estate investing, too, didn't they? So let me ask you this. There's four questions I want you to ponder this week. Number one, where am I feeling 100% certain? Tied to that, where am I feeling less than certain? Where am I feeling some uncertainty that I can lean into a little bit? Third question, where am I feeling 100% confident as a leader in my role with a project, whatever it is, however you want to answer it and then the piggyback question for that is where am I feeling lack of confidence, certain uncertain, confident, unconfident or lack of confidence? Rather write those down, think on those and change your game forever my friend. Make sure you give us a rating, give us a like, give us a follow, give us a subscribe as they change platforms and different things. I just want to jump on here with you every week and share truth, wisdom, challenge, opportunity. That's what we're here for. The home service industry is challenging enough. Let's peel off 1015 minutes a week and share together. Together. We'd love to hear from you. Would love it if you gave us a rating and a review. Until we talk my friends, I'm Kenny Chapman, your host of leadership in a nutshell for home service. Make it a better than fantastic week. We'll see you real.