67. Go Straight to the Problem

Foreign Kenny Chapman here, your host of Leadership in a Nutshell, where we're cracking the code of the driven mind for home service professionals. I'm super excited to be with you as I am every week. And this week it is episode 67 where we're going to talk about go straight to the problem. You know, we've got these kind of thoughts in leadership and we think about our thinking a lot. And that's where I'm going to challenge you a little bit here today. You know, I do this podcast as a solo cast. I will have guests on at some point in the future. But I do this as a solo cast because many of my followers and all of our members have asked for, you know, just a shot of Kenny. I don't do a lot of live training any longer other than my high level group training and some individual coaching here and there and a couple of high level companies that I work with. And this is my chance to just kind of share stories and some perspective and some thoughts from all the coaching that I get, all the brilliant minds that I have the opportunity to be around. And today I'm going to give you a little shot in the arm. You ready for that? Not, not a shot that. Well, never mind. I won't even get into all that. So let's do a mental shift today and think about this. Right? So, okay, so go straight to the problem here in episode 67 and I want you to just think for a moment about where you have the most resistance showing up in your business. And if you're in an opportunity, if you're listening to this at the office or in a place where you can take notes, or maybe you're on a beach with a Corona, or maybe you're stuck in traffic. So don't take notes if you're stuck in traffic. But if you have a chance to take notes, I'd encourage you just to kind of do a quick exercise with me and write down what is the area of, of the most resistance in the business at the moment? Is it recruiting? Is it your leadership structure? Is it training? Is it marketing? Is it lead flow? Is it dispatching? Is it your call center? Is it your own capability? Is it your confidence? You know, there's all kinds of areas where we have the most resistance. And I just want you to hold that in your mind or, or perhaps write that down. And then I want you to write this down or hold this thought. Go there now. Go there now. Now. Next week I'm going to talk to you about plan. So I don't want to jump into the plan of just, you know, wild west, of jumping into everything and stirring the pot. But when I think about the biggest problems in my life and my businesses, over my career, in personal relationships and finance, in, you know, markets, in external things that we can't control, like global pandemics, the thing that always is the number one resolution is going at it. So where that biggest resistance is, that's where you can create the most value right now as the leader that you are. The biggest resistance is begging for your attention. It's begging for your desire. Couple of episodes I talked about. The universe doesn't care what you want. It cares where you focus your energy and it delivers based on your attention, your energy, your focus. And that's the same is true with a problem that needs to be resolved. I'll say that too. Like, where is that resistance? Sometimes it's just a matter of I need to go there to quantify it and ask some questions around it and do some self coaching perhaps, and go, is this really an issue? Is this really something that deserves my sleepless nights and my non stop energy, or am I making something out of nothing, so to speak? Right, so when you think about that, what's the biggest point of resistance? Then you think about what is the easiest option. When you think about what the easiest option is to handle that, guess what? It's not going to make much of a difference, my friend. And in fact, it's probably what you've been doing to this point, which is probably why you may still have the problem that you have or the challenge that you have, or the opportunity, because I'm big on what we call transformational vocabulary. And I actually believe that every problem that exists in your life and in your business is actually a gift. And I'll talk a little bit about that at the end of this episode. So hang with me on that. I'm not saying like, holy crap, Kenny, I've got real problems. You don't understand. I get it. I hear you. I empathize with you. I have massive compassion. But I'm still going to tell you it's one of the biggest gifts. I'm going to give you an exercise to walk through getting your mind there because right now it's in your face and it doesn't feel good. But I'm going to ask you, have you go through some transformational vocabulary thinking and kind of get there. So every time a problem arises or what the mind holds as a problem, there's an opportunity that gets born. And when There is challenge. That's where there is value to be created, if you will. And I want you to just kind of think about that when you really take a step back and go, you know, as a leader, one of my number one responsibilities and opportunities and gifts in the world is that I get to go create value every day, and I get to create value around push points and resistance points and where the team might be pushing back, where the market might be giving me resistance, whatever that is. But you know that the stuff that's hard is that's the good stuff. You know, I had the great gift of traveling with the incredible Les Brown. I did 14 cities with Les in five months. And I remember he would always talk about from the stage, and many people have paraphrased it and talked different ways, and I doubt that Les is the one that actually came up with the concept. But it's kind of like, you know, you do the hard stuff now, so life is easier later. If you. If you're living and addressing the hard things now, then life becomes easier later, and you're. You're a testament of that. And when you think about the incredible life that you enjoy and you've got a damn good life, or you wouldn't be listening to this right now. So let's just keep that in perspective, right? Doesn't mean you don't want more. I want more. My team wants more. Our clients want more, you want more. Everybody wants more.

Right?

But you've got a good life right now. And the good life that we enjoy, it exists because countless people, countless people have endured countless challenges, right? There's been massive challenge. When you think back to, you know, I remember I went through a phase where I felt guilty when I got back from Desert Storm. I was in the first Gulf War back in 1990, and I guess 90 and 91, whenever that crossed over. And I think about, you know, when I got back and I struggled with some stuff around, like, that wasn't a real war. It lasted a hundred hours. I mean, we were in real wars before, in Korea and World War II, and, you know, all these different things. And it's like, no, wait a minute. I made major sacrifice to go and sure, I signed on the line and agreed to do those things. This isn't about war. This is about people in the trades, too, that came before us that made it so easy. I remember, you know, early on and when I was eating up everything that, you know, the great Frank Blau, George Brazile, Ron Smith, the people that would come, you know, and Just share their wisdom and their information. And I'm like, this is easy. So when I was a 20something young contractor and crushed it and built a national role model company and became, became one of the youngest influential trainers in the space, that was, it should have happened that way, for lack of a better term of a should.

But I mean, how could it not.

When there was so many greats that shared amazing information and I was an.

Implementer and they handled a lot of problems, they dealt with a lot of pain, a lot of resistance, a lot.

Of struggle in order for us to.

Have the great things that we've got now.

And so now it's our privilege to.

You know, kind of look for how.

Do we use this to fulfill ourselves. And so when you look at challenges in the business, I would encourage you.

To just realize it's simply perspective.

You know what they say, one man's garbage is another man's royalty type stuff.

And treasure and gold and all that kind of stuff. It's like I'm grateful enough to take some things to the Goodwill periodically throughout the year that I'm a big proprietor. Like I give a lot to the Goodwill simply because I used to shop at the Goodwill. And I'll never forget when I was coming up and I was wearing secondhand clothes and before I, I made any money at all or had any quote, unquote success financially, I had to wear secondhand clothes and I would go shopping at the Goodwill and I was so grateful when I, I got a good outfit. Some. I first started, you know, doing speaking and training and I was selling insurance when I got out of the army and I would go to the Goodwill in Denver, they had better ones in Denver. They didn't even have one in Grand Junction at the time. So now I make it a point. I give a lot of really good stuff there because I'm one. I'm not a guy that's going to sell stuff on ebay or whatever, but I believe in paying it forward. And when I think about the people that have paid it forward to us, they gave us the gift of the problems that we have today.

Now that being said, let's circle back. I'm not minimizing. You've got some shit you're dealing with, right? I get that you've got some issues, you've got some problems, you got some things going on. So I just want you to realize and kind of hold in perspective. Next week I'm going to talk to you about plans and kind of how we, how we build around you. Know, addressing problems like that. But right now, I want you to just kind of think about, you know, this problem that you've held and. And why. Why are some things you haven't gone straight to it? You know, I'm. I'm one of those guys, if I've got a relationship challenge that needs to be dealt with, I, like, I almost can't go to sleep at night. Like, I. I need to deal with it. As soon as it comes up, I want to deal with it. And that's because I want to keep moving my life forward. I want to keep moving my businesses forward. I want to keep moving my relationships forward. And I don't see any reason in procrastinating. Now. Procrastination is a real thing, and it usually means that we don't have enough focus, we don't have enough clarity. We're allowing fear into the equation. We're allowing doubt to enter the mind. We don't have the confidence to step up to the plate at the moment, whatever that is. They're all real things. I'm not minimizing a single thing here. I'm here to set you free. And what I know for you to be set free is to go right there, go to that problem, go to that point of resistance. Go with this thought for just a moment with me. And you may have heard me share this before, if you're a member of blue collar, you probably have heard me speak this from the stage, but I just write this down as we go. Number one, we have a problem, right? It starts out as a problem, and I want you to think about that problem and kind of gain some perspective and without creating softeners or minimizing, I've got a problem. And then I want you to think about shifting that problem in your mind to the word issue. And maybe, maybe I've got a problem, but maybe it's really just an issue. Kenny. When I think about myself, maybe it's just an issue. And so a problem seems big and daunting and overwhelming. An issue seems like something that just needs to be handled, right? Just needs to be dealt with. I got an issue. Okay. I'm going to deal with it. Okay. Certain level of confidence, too. I might not have the confidence to deal with a problem, but an issue doesn't have as much emotion. So certainly I've got the confidence. I just need to deal with this thing, right? Then we go. So we go, problem, we go issue. Now, in your mind, I want you to frame this as a challenge. So now I think about okay, well, wait a minute. What if this issue is actually a challenge? Now, I'm a competitive guy. I come from the sporting world. I believe in collaboration more than competition. Now, I don't think that blue collar has competitors. I think we have partners in the marketplace that are also doing great things to help people. Like, I really do. I believe in abundance, and I believe everybody's there. Like, we don't, you know, we don't collaborate with certain people directly, but I believe that, you know, as a greater consciousness level, we're. We're all connected, trying to help this incredible industry of the home service space, right? And so when I think about challenge, I think about my. My kind of sporting days and go, oh, I'm. I'm up for a challenge. Let's do this right now. This kicks in another. Another emotion in my mind where, okay, I had a problem. Whoa, that sucks. I got an issue. Okay, I can deal with that. I got a challenge. Whoa, hang on. Let's do this. Let's. Okay, now I'm ready. Let's. Okay, let's get the blood pumping a little bit. I got a challenge. Then I want you to go to the fourth thing. Opportunity. What if this problem that really could be an issue that actually is ultimately a challenge. What if that's actually an opportunity? Because as you look back on your life, your career, your relationships, your finance, generally, some of these big problems actually were opportunities. Right now, an opportunity is one of those things where, okay, I can step into it or I can step away from it, but here's this thing that exists, and maybe, maybe I've got a chance to learn, right? I believe that so many things in life are opportunities, and then we get to the last one, and it's a gift. And the reality is the universe gives us gifts all the time, and the packaging is a problem. And so no different than if I gave you a Christmas gift or a birthday gift or. Or any kind of a, you know, a housewarming gift, and it was all wrapped up, you would usually open that up and you would want to see what's in there. But when the universe hand. Hands us a gift and it's got this wrapping paper that says, oh, it's a problem. Oh, my gosh, I don't want to open that gift. I don't want to dive in there. But what if I can just slowly shift my mind and realize that maybe this problem is actually an issue that I can step up and resolve? What if this issue is actually a challenge that I can step up to and really get fired up about. What if this challenge is actually an opportunity for me to learn more, dig more, you know, dig a little deeper, to. To become more, to step up my own game and. And get some education that I need? And ultimately, what if this is a gift that. What if this is exactly what I need? And the universe saying, you know, how you want that next level? Well, here you go. Here's one of the things that you get to learn through in order to.

Go to that next level.

What a gift, my friend. Go straight to the problem, ladies and gentlemen. So that's what it's all about. That's what we're here to do. We're here to shift thinking. We're here to grow our community together. You and I can just keep on having these weekly conversations. Share this episode with somebody. Kick it to somebody. Give us a rating, a review, a like a follow. Make sure you connect with us. Every week Right here on Leadership in a nutshell for home service professionals, I'm your host, Kenny Chapman. This is episode 67. Go straight to the problem until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week. See you next week. Thanks, everybody.