56. Truth and Self-Deception in Leadership

Foreign. Hey, my friend Kenny Chapman here, your host of Leadership in a Nutshell for home service. I'm super pumped to be with you. Back again for episode number 56. We're going to dive into truth and self deception in leadership and as home service leaders, you know, maybe it's because I come from the trades. I spend my time, energy, focus, purpose in the trades. I just, I feel like we have a little different reality than a lot of people have. And because of that, that's why I niched this podcast to speak directly to home service leaders. Like, it's just something that's super passionate for me and you know, I've had many coaches and business consultants in the past say, you know, well, you, you could be in Fortune 500 boardrooms and doing different things. Like, the only way I want to be in Fortune 500 boardrooms is when I'm helping a client negotiate a private equity deal or working with private equity companies that are buying trades companies and different things like that. If I have to put on pants and a collared shirt, I'm out. No, I'm just playing. But the reality is maybe I'm not playing, maybe that is truth as I'm in shorts and a T shirt as I'm recording here for you today. But here's the thing. You know, as home service leaders, a lot of us, and I'll just speak for myself and some of what I've experienced and witnessed, but some of us don't come up with the, you know, the silver spoon. Last week I talked about, you know, being born on third base and thinking that you hit a triple and some of those types of things. Most of us had to grind. Am I right? Like, you just had to grind it out all day, every day. A lot of us ended up in the trades because we, we weren't good at college or we didn't have other options and different things and, and that was how it started. But I want to remind you that how things start aren't how they finish. And that's very important for us is wherever you are in your, in your walk as a leader, in your career, in your home service company or whatever situation that you're in, you're just at this moment in time. And I know in 1994 when I started as a dead broke drain cleaner by myself in a truck, I had a reality then and I had to do everything and I had to create everything and I had to sell everything and I had to install everything and I had to make the phone ring and I had to answer the phone. All right, let's be honest. I had to hear my pager go off, find a pay phone, drop some quarters into it, and make a phone call back to the client. Let's be real. I didn't have a call center. I didn't have a cell phone when I started. I guess early on, I bought one of the big brick phones for $450. I remember that cost 450 bucks. And no, I couldn't stream music, and no, I didn't have Facebook on. Anyway, I digress. But the reality is we all have a history and we come from these different places. And today, I just want to kind of honor your truth about where you're at and really what's really going on right now. And so, you know, there's probably been books written and certainly blogs and different things prior to this about truth and deception. But the reality that I want to speak to you about is your situation, my friend. It is what it is. And we hear that a lot. And I say it a lot, and I think my coaches say it a lot. But at the end of the day, it is what it is. But here's where I want to go a little deeper today. No matter what you tell yourself, you can frame it, you can label it, you can blame it, you can feel guilt, you can feel regret, you can feel shame, you can feel pain. But at the end of the day, no matter what, what you're left with is reality. Period. And so there's a certain level of truth to that that I'm encouraging you to step into rather than away from. Because take me as an example. Many times in my life, I stepped away from truth. And I had defense mechanisms built through my subconscious. The that wouldn't allow me to face truth based on certain trauma and drama and relationships and certain things that happen throughout my life. Yours is no different. And so here's the thing. Wherever you are, that's your truth. And you can choose everything of what you do about it, but you cannot choose to change what has happened to this point. And therefore, I believe in the phrase, and I don't know who said it first, my mentor, Dan Sullivan's the one that hammers it into me a lot. But all progress begins with telling the truth. All progress. And until you get to that place and you go, you know what? I have got to fix my price book. I have got to get my software system squared away. I have got to fix my sales department. I've got to align with a good marketing company. I've got to embrace coaching at a level that I never have before. I've got to commit to training whatever it is. My friend, there's a truth right now and then there's your reality about how you perceive it. And the biggest danger in the world is self deception. And my job as your coach and your friend and your mentor and your peer in the home service space. Which is why I record for blue collar type companies only in home service. I don't care if you're a member of blue collar or not. Well, I do. I would love to, love to have you a blue collar, but I record this for anybody and everybody in the trades. We are. I almost said, I can't stand the saying. We're all in this together. No, we're not. We're not in anything together. We're all having an individual experience with a global circumstance. And the same is true with the trades. We're not in this together. You've got a company and you over here you've got a company. You're a plumber, you're an H Vac company, you're in New York, you're in California. You sure? The industry has similarities, but you're in it as an individual and that means you have individual challenge, you have individual pain, you have individual history, you have individual confidence, you have individual unique ability. And it minimizes that when we just go, oh, we're all in this together. No we're not. We're having a one off opportunity to go through our lives in a conscious awareness. So as we think about that, you know, the truth might be painful, my friends. I know it has been many, many times in my life. But what's even more painful is deceiving myself, yourself, anybody. And that's going to lead to more pain. That's what causes breakdowns. That's what causes what the world calls midlife crisises. I call them awareness awakening opportunities. Right? And the key to any change is to have the change before the pain is too great, before the trigger is too great. And that's where the self deception comes in. Because what we have is like, you know, right away it feels like, okay, that deception works. Okay, cool. And guess what? It lasts about 20 seconds. It's like, okay, I'm not telling myself the truth about that. You know, different situation might happen, whatever. Like as soon as you realize the deception isn't going to, to happen now you take your quality of life down, you take your quality of relationship down, you take your quality of self worth and self image start to crumble. And here's what my coach taught me. All addiction is rooted in our inability to deal with reality in our lives. You might want to write that down. All addiction is rooted in our inability to deal with reality in our lives. How's that said differently? You can't deal with life. That's why we have an addicted society. And I'm not talking about just drugs and alcohol. I'm talking about shopping. I'm talking about addiction to working out. I'm talking about workaholism. I'm talking about all the different spending, all the, there's all kinds of different ways that you don't deal with the reality of your life. And that's okay. I'm not beating you up for that. I spent many years beating myself up for that. I'm not going to beat anybody else up over it. But what I want you to realize as a leader, when you start with the truth and then you stick with it and work through that challenge, work through that pain and, and realize, man, I've got to make some major changes here. I might have to change up some team. I might have to retrain some team. I might have to get another level of coaching myself. I might have to go a little bit deeper. I might have to own some insecurities that I've got. I might have to fill in the blank, my friend. Whatever the cost, whatever the challenge, it's all short term. And your return on investment is what we call compounded roi, my friend. When you get to like, okay, cool, this is gonna, it's going to hurt a little bit, but boom, I'm going to rip the band aid off of truth. I'm just going to call it what it is. And here I go, right? So I want you to just be mindful of this. And as we think through together here today, you know, I was involved in a partnership a couple of years ago and we ended up needing to part ways. He's a good dude, I'm a good dude. Just different beliefs around certain things, different times in life or whatever. But I think we both knew that it wasn't going to be a good long term fit. And when we think about truth and deception in leadership, I think that it's important to realize when you make decisions and how you make decisions of when were there times that you might have deceived yourself even subconsciously. Remember, all self sabotage is subconscious. You don't get up in the morning and decide you're going to go wreck your day or challenge your team or yell at a technician or you Know, piss off a vendor. Those things happen subconsciously, right? And so be easy with yourself as you go through this. But what's fascinating is when, when everything kind of came to a head and decided that, that we needed to, to undo this partnership and unravel things and, and get back to, to where we were before we entered that, that engagement and that agreement together. There had to be a time that I knew and there had to be a time that he knew. And what's fascinating is one of my mentors who has passed away since this conversation, but I went straight to his house when I realized that something needed to change. And I told him his name was Sean Stevenson. Some of you should look him up on YouTube. Just a phenomenal individual that had a tragic accident and left the planet way too young. But I was super blessed to, to have Sean in my life. And one of the things that he taught me was this whole thing about truth and self deception. Or maybe he didn't teach me originally, but he helped me go to another level. And what he helped me realize is when did I know? And so I went in and I told him in no uncertain terms. I said, sean, I drop a four letter word that starts with an F in it. And I said, sean, I messed up, man, we'll call it that today for the podcast and said, I, I messed up. And he just looked at me and he said, when did you know? And he had no understanding what I was going to say. He had no idea where I had quote, messed up. He was more interested in my decision making process, to honoring that truth. And I would leave you with that kind of thought today, my friend. And so, you know, I would encourage you, I'm going to give you three questions to kind of ask yourself, but I just really want you to think about in your own business today, any of the things that you need to be aware of. You know, where, where is there that little fluorescent light bulb that's kind of buzzing in the back of your mind of awareness, man, I know I'm going to need to deal with this. We all have it. And the self deception says, ah, don't deal with it. Or maybe, maybe, just maybe, it'll get better on its own, right? And I can't say that without a chuckle just about my own career and my own. I, you know, I started in the service business, gosh, 27 years ago and I can't count how many times I've implemented self deception techniques as defense mechanisms, as fear, as avoidance, as minimizing, justifying all those different Types of things. So let me leave you with a few questions and I'll get you out of here. By the way, make sure that you subscribe to us. Make sure you give us a, like a rating. Would love to have some ratings increasing here. If you're digging this, if you're getting value, please fire an email to somebody. Share what we're talking. We're 10, 15 minutes a week, all home service, all the time. That's what we're talking about. But it's all about leadership and unlocking your brain and unlocking your next level of greatness. So here's these questions. Number one, what do I know that I'm pretending not to know about my current situation? I think that's where me and my previous partner were. We both had an understanding. We both knew, but we were kind of pretending not to know for a while and maybe it would get better, different things. Second question, what will be the cost emotionally, financially, physically, and perhaps relationally if I don't honor the truth within? There's a universal truth that's going on? What would be that cost if I don't honor that emotionally, financially, physically, and possibly in a relationship aspect? And last and certainly not least, what is the first action step that I can take to begin owning this truth? All progress begins with the truth. Now, that's just where the progress begins. We start making massive, massive change. Massive progress, massive movement, massive momentum. When we own everything around the truth, when we realize, I created this situation in my scenario today, again, I've got nothing but love for this individual to this day. We trade messages periodically throughout the year. I respect him. I hope he respects me. But at the end of the day, the reality is I take full ownership for where we ended up 100%. I don't know his level of ownership. We haven't had that conversation. And it's really not important. What's important is I'm having my walk. He. He's having his walk. But I take full responsibility for mine. And if I do that, then perhaps I can impact my president at Blue Collar now in Chris and help him honor his truth and help my team around him honor their truth and all those different types of things. It's about ownership. Make sure you're telling yourself the truth, my friend. Live there. Honor it. Don't deceive yourself. Don't get into this deception role. It's not worth it. And eventually the truth is going to come out anyway. It might as well be today. I'm Kenny Chapman, your host of leadership in a nutshell for home service. This has been episode 56, Truth and Deception in Leadership. Let me know what you're thinking. Give us a rating review. Make sure you're subscribed until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you real soon. Thank you, Sa.