60. The One Thing Theory

Hey, my friend Kenny Chapman here, your host of Leadership in a Nutshell for home service professionals, just like you and me, this is episode 60, the one thing Theory. That's right, the One Thing Theory. And I need to practice the One Thing theory when I'm recording podcast episodes for you because my squirrelly brain wants to hop around once I get going and once I feel an opportunity to connect with you. So I want to thank you for being here. It really means a lot that we get to connect here weekly, and I get to download some thoughts and ideas and just areas for you to challenge your own thoughts and processes. And I'm a fan of accomplishment. I'm a fan of change, and I'm really a fan of people that take action to get what they want in their lives. And as leaders in home service, you know, we kind of came up in a space where it wasn't sexy, it wasn't cool, it wasn't fun. It's like, you know, it's all, oh, man, go be a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer. Like, when I graduated high school in 1988, I think the number one job was engineering. And I. Or like the. Whatever, the job you should go to college for. And. And I remember recently I had coffee with a buddy of mine that moved to the Pacific Northwest, and he became an engineer. And he was one of the smartest guys in school, so he had the grades and all that. And I'm just super grateful that I didn't get the good enough grades to become an engineer. And as I say, engineer, many of us on the line cringe because we know they're the hardest clients to work for and some different things like that in home service, because they've got their way that things should work. And then we live in the real world of the way things actually work. Right? Which is a good kind of segue for our topic here today, the One Thing Theory. I'm here to kind of challenge some conventional thinking. And it's interesting when I hear the words conventional wisdom put together, because I think it's kind of like I was attached to the 66 Michigan unit in Fort Bliss, Texas, of the 3rd ACR when I was in the United States Army. And 66 miles unit stood for military Intelligence. And we had a big laugh during that in the late 80s and early 90s when I was in the military. And certainly we go, man, what an oxymoron. Military and intelligence. And sometimes I think conventional and wisdom can also fall into that same category. It's like, what are we thinking about what are we reading? What are we paying attention to? And more importantly, when? What are we doing with our lives? And so I want to expose some challenges, what I would almost call lies today. And that might be a little strong. Let me also caveat this by I'm not asking you to believe anything that I'm telling you. I'm not asking you to buy into anything that I say. I'm not asking you to change your behavior based on anything I say. What I'm asking you to do is ask yourself questions around the topics that we share here on leadership. In a nutshell, all I want to do is expose your mind to an opportunity for you to think clearly, for yourself, for you to challenge some of your limiting beliefs, for you to really acknowledge, Is something working for me, or am I just doing it because that's how I was taught to do it? And a couple of these things lie around what I call the one thing theory. I believe in the one thing theory. When it comes to changing human behavior, when it comes to creating the businesses, the relationships, the finance that we want, when it comes to elevating our game as leaders, when it comes to communication strategies, I believe in the one thing theory. The one thing theory states that there is one thing that will make the biggest difference in your life right now that will create the biggest change, the biggest opportunity, the least amount of mediocrity, the least amount of pain, the most. The least amount of struggle, the least amount of challenge. There is one thing, and many of you already know kind of in your gut what that is. And here's the big challenge, my friend. A lot of times, the one thing that will make the biggest difference, that will challenge us the most, that will create the biggest opportunity in our lives. It's the one that we want to do the least. Oh, no. Oh, Kenny went there. That's right. It's like the one thing is the one thing that'll make the biggest difference, the biggest impact in my life. And yet it's the one thing that I might want to do the least. I know for me, when I've addressed different challenges in my own life and behaviors, I've shared many of those with you over the course of now. 60. How about that? This is our 60th episode and we're just getting started, my friend. I love our time together, so I'm just going to keep on rocking. I want more and more comments and thoughts and ratings so we understand what we're doing. But at the end of the day, this is really about you. And when you look at what's one thing that will make the biggest difference. A lot of times we cover this up and I do some life architecture work with clients and I run a life architecture platform that I'll be embracing soon as far as doing some more group work and some different things like that. When we look at life architecture, a lot of times when I start working with somebody, it's like, okay, the one thing theory. And I have them do an exercise and get to what their one thing is. And then it takes multiple kind of sessions before we know what the actual one thing is. And so what we know about humans and our behavior is what we say we want isn't usually what we really want. And the reason I mention that is because it's an opportunity to set ourselves free. If you don't really want it, then stop telling yourself a story around it because we have this, you know, this kind of tendency to defend mediocrity in our lives while telling ourselves a story that we're not. What do I mean by that? I grew up and operated a business in small town America. 90% of our market served was in less than 100,000 people. And yet we built a multimillion dollar self managing crushing company that crushed it for clients, crushed it for team. Gave us the opportunity to graduate my leaders, when it was time for me to leave the business, sold it to a long term operations manager and she's running the business the way that she wants now with her unique ability showing up each and every day. And what I want us to realize is that when it comes to the defending of mediocrity, a lot of times we think that I mentioned small town because sometimes there's this quote, small town thinking, where if I'm from a small town, I think it's small town thinking. If I'm from a big town. What I forget is that big towns are built up of small towns and a lot of people live their lives in their little kind of area. When you look at New York City, for instance, back before COVID and it was, you know, hustling and bustling and every. How many people never go from one borough to the next in that, in that area, they go to their little grocery store, they go to their, you know, their barber, where they get their nails done, whatever the case is. And it's a little small community. That's what America, Canada and Australia are kind of built on. And so when you think about like, well, okay, Kenny, fine. Why are you talking about this with the one thing? Because sometimes thinking can Be one of the things that we want to address first. And so when I find out what my one thing is, what I also realize is my thinking process and how I address my thinking and my thinking about my thinking. I'm not going to go off on a tangent around this, but really how you think about your thinking is very important. And I want to challenge the people that have a hard time with one thing because what are some lies out there? Oh, lies. I'll share one right now, and this will challenge a lot of you. I'm good at multitasking, right? Oh, yeah. I've taken tests. I've taken personality tests. I've taken aptitude tests. I'm a good multitasker. Nope, you're not. Sorry, bs. You're actually minimizing your productivity by trying to do more than one thing. I know how the human brain works and is wired, and it does not do multiple things at once. You kid yourself into doing many things one at a time and rolling them into this thing that you consider multitasking. It is a fallacy. Stop the insanity. Let me hit you with another one. Since we're hitting each other here. It's. And you can give me the head nod and no, Kenny, I'm not with you. That's fine, because here's another one. Work life balance. Get a capital B and a capital S and you can fill in the blanks. There's no such thing as work life balance. You have a balance, and I mean, you have a life, I should say. And most of the time you live it out of balance. What do I mean by that? Well, you either slept enough or too much or not enough. You either ate too much or drank too much. You either spent too much time at the gym and you're sore or not enough time at the gym and you feel sluggish. Life is about being out of balance. What it really is about, in my opinion, is being out of balance and being in harmony. There's times that I go on stretches where I'll work 75 hours a week and then I'll take a trip or maybe I'll take different. There's no balance in life. And you can challenge me on this. And I expect to be challenged on it because most people I share the concept with go, Kenny, you're crazy. You're living. Oh, no, that's not how it works. That's fine. I would just encourage you to look at your life and start keeping a journal of how balanced your work and your life is. Your personal life, I should say. And Then you begin to start realizing you don't have a work life and a personal life. You have a life. And some of your activities involve work. And some of your activities involve personal. Some of your activities involve your children, some of your activities involve finance, some involve your intimate relationship, whatever that is. And here's the reality. Any and all of those can improve when you adopt, adapt, and apply the one thing theory. You can only really make radical improvement and massive change with one thing at a time in your life. So I would ask you today, what is that one thing that you could do the most with? What is the one thing that you could really focus on? And sometimes the one thing exposes something that I need to stop or that I need to do less of. And sometimes that one thing acknowledges something that I need to add to my life and I need to do more of. But no different than what was episode 57 when I talked about subtracting before we add, and then, and only then getting into multiplication, I want you to think about with that's kind of what we're sharing. With the one thing. It's the one thing that I will add, it's the one thing that I will subtract. Where do I really want to focus? Because it reminds me also of the Pareto principle. And when we think about the Pareto principle, most of us know it as the 8020 rule, meaning 80% of the results that you get in your life and your business and your finance come from 20% of the activities, effort, or relationships. And so at the end of the day, when we go, well, wait a minute, I get more from less. Why don't I focus there? And that's where we continue to buy more and more leverage from focusing on the 20% of the 80% rule. And then my 20% grows into becoming 100% again. And now I focus and we keep on chunking down, then we do the same thing. With unique genius or unique ability, we do the same thing when it comes to business model and strategy. We do the same thing when we come to leadership, communication and what we're doing there. But at the end of the day, you're generally trying to do too many things at once. And therefore, you're not getting a market result anywhere. Therefore, that challenges your confidence. It challenges your believability in yourself and what you're trying to do. And so if a client comes to me and I say, well, what's your one thing? Well, Kenny, really, I've got several one things right. Some of you right now are like Man, Kenny, I got a few one things. I want to grow the business by 20%. I want to increase my cash reserves. I want to lose 10 pounds. I want to implement date night into my intimate relationship. I want to take Saturdays off so I can go to my child's soccer game, basketball game, baseball game, dance, choir, whatever it is, fill in the blank. Right? And so you go, well, look, Kenny, I did good. I pared it down. I only have five. Nope, you have one. And the other four will suffer if you don't commit to the one. And I understand this is a challenge and based on feedback and where you want to go with this, I will probably record additional episodes around this. And once I start having guests on the show, I would love to have guests to challenge me and talk through this. Because the mind, though an abundance mind, we have scarcity. Whether you have a growth mindset or a scarcity mindset, as an overarching mindset, you have both. And so for growth minded people, this is where scarcity will show up. I'm like, well, I'm abundance, I'm growth. So therefore I want to improve five things at once. And, and my scarcity part of my mind kicks in and goes, yeah, I don't want to miss out. My FOMO gene pops in and goes, yeah, I don't, I don't want to miss out on the opportunity to increase my cash reserves and lose weight at the same time. And I'm not telling you that you can't do other activities. I'm not telling you that you can't save money and go to the gym. What I'm telling you is that intellectually, emotionally and commitment wise, you are best served when you commit to one at a time. Think about it for yourself, for your business, for your team members, for your communication. What is the one thing that could be my one thing where I could move the needle the most that I would feel the best about now? Understanding it might be a challenge. As I said earlier, it might be one thing that I've been avoiding. I've been procrastinating, I've been putting off. When we think about the joke about multitasking, and I say joke because it's not, it's a fallacy, it doesn't exist. We have a story around it that makes it exist. We have stories in our lives and we have experiences in our lives and we have a story around multitasking that makes us think we experience it. It's simply not true. But what I do want you to think about today, when you get to the one thing is, yes, I get you're a leader of a busy home service business. You got a lot of things going on, so I would encourage you to implement some time blocking for freedom. And when you have one thing that you're working on, one project at a time that you're doing, block some time and see how you can focus there. I understand there could be some stories around. Well, you know, I'm a service manager, so my phone might ring. I'm a call center manager, so I might have. That's fine. It's all about intention and purpose. But at the end of the day, your intention of what you're really focusing on. Most importantly for today, for the next week, for the next quarter, what is your one thing and set yourself free. I'm Kenny Chapman. This is episode 60, the One Thing Theory. This is leadership in a nutshell. Would love for you to like share Email this episode to somebody that you want to challenge on this Share this episode with somebody as we grow our community here and keep on giving back to our amazing home service space that's been so good to all of us. Until we talk, make it a better than fantastic week. I'll see you real soon. Thanks everybody.