68. The Purpose of YOUR Plan

Foreign welcome back to Leadership in a nutshell for home service professionals. This is where we crack the code on that driven mind that we have and what it takes in order to be successful as an operator, as a leader, as an influencing individual to your team in home service. It can be a challenge. And there's all kinds of different information and different directions and different trades and lines that you can follow all these different things. Today in episode 68, I want to talk to you about the purpose of your plan. And so as your host here, I'm grateful that you invest 10, 15 minutes a week here with me. I love the opportunity to connect and share some things that I learned from clients that I see in the trades that I'm able to keep. This is what I've committed my entire life for. Yeah, I've traveled with amazing speakers. I've done huge keynotes, audiences, I've written general books. And now all of the work that I do is for the home service trades. And I'm very grateful for that. I've got a book coming out later this year about leadership for home service professionals, and we've got seven principles that will help unlock your greatest self. And quite honestly, kind of flies in the face of some of the, quote, success. And there's so much stuff that goes on now in the transparency or the, I could almost call it sometimes, you know, false transparency of, of online. You know, any. Anybody can look any different way that they want online. And I'm not taking anything away from anybody. What I'm asking you to do is go back into yourself and realize what you truly want your business to look like, what you truly want your leadership role to look like, what you want your position to do, how you want it to fulfill you, why it exists you're doing with it. And so today in this episode, as we talk about the purpose of your plan, and I want you to kind of bold that and capitalize that. It's your plan. It's not somebody else's. It's not some random best practice group. It's not your coach at blue collar if you're one of the blue collar members. It's not about any of us. It's about you. It's about your family. It's about your team. It's about what you want. And we start with a plan. And so today I really want to break down some of the psychology of why, what the purpose is behind a plan. You're not going to find a business coach or a consultant or a best practice group. That's not Going to oh, what's the plan and what are you going to do and where are you at on plan? That's all good. I'm a psychology guy and I spend most of my time now studying the human mind and human behavior. And I work with the subconscious mind. And as I've reprogrammed mine and many clients and I do my high level work now around reprogramming subconscious habits and behaviors and different things. I just want you to think about a plan. So first of all, how do you think about a plan? When I say that, what does that mean? Well, we have different ways that we think. So I used to have an M.O. where I thought about a plan of like okay, this is. I have it nailed on paper to exactly what it's going to look like and there won't be any shifts or any changes or any directions, different things like that. And I've written five year plans that I'm blown away when I, you know, even if I haven't gone back and read every single one, I wrote one in 2000 I guess about what my plumbing heating company would look like. Actually it was a plumbing company at the time. And I said I would like in five years I would also be a heating company and I said I would serve all of western Colorado. But during that time I had a non compete with another member of a best practice group that existed in a market 60 miles away from me. But I went ahead and wrote the plan and just kind of figured I'd see kind of what happened and what took place. And what was fascinating is 18 months after I wrote the plan, I bought that company that had the non compete. So I bought that company as well as my non compete and then I ended up serving it. And what was funny is I didn't get that plan back out when I wrote that strategy plan and go over it and bounce thoughts off of my. But there was some work going on in my subconscious mind that kind of took place. And that's one of the gifts of a good plan is that you kind of place some things in your programming. And so I want you to think about a plan as simply a guiding arrow or a guiding light if you will. And so why does a plan exist? And you go, well, so I have a map so I know where I'm going. And all these normal, okay, that's fine and that's great. Here's what I'm going to tell you. A plan exists, so you get started, period. Write that down. My plan exists. So I begin. That's what it's all about. And so there's a difference between implementing ideas and plans. And on previous episodes I've talked about my mentor, Keith Cunningham, that taught me about implementing plans, not ideas. Because I used to to be a shotgun approach in the world, in business. And a couple of those little pellets or BBs or whatever you call it that comes out of a shotgun shell would hit my target periodically. But damn, it wasn't near as good as having a laser on a high powered rifle from a thousand feet and being able to know exactly what I wanted to do before I launch. Now as soon as I launch, I might go, hang on, wait a minute, there's a different target over here that I want to go to. But it's going to be well thought out. And I have a reason that I got started, I didn't get started because of an idea I got, because I have a plan of where I'm gonna go, then it's gonna massage, it's gonna shift, it's gonna change as we go. Because here's the thing, you will run into problems, right? I talked about that in last week's episode. So if you haven't listened to last week, go back and listen to episode 67 where we say go straight at the problem. And you know, the fact is, the problem is not the problem. The problem is when you let that problem stop. You see, it's about slowing down, it's about not taking action, it's about hesitation. Okay, to regroup, we need to catch our breath. I have what I call recharge days where I don't do business. I do the things that really give me energy and feed me. And a lot of what I do in business does give me energy. So on my hybrid days, I'm doing business and I'm doing personal recharge things. I might go for a hike and I might be in the studio, you know, recording for you, but I'm sitting here thinking through like, man, what, you know, sometimes I need to take a step back and recharge. But most of the time I'm going forward and I want you to think about that plan. You know, the, the only thing that really holds you back is when you take that failure to act and when your plan comes, you know, when I go, okay, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to build, like take that example. I'm going to create a market leading company serving all of western Colorado, this and that. I bought that company, but then I ended up like, fast forward 18 months, I closed that office. It wasn't. It was a different sh of mindset, of clientele, of team members, of recruiting. And so we ended up still serving all of western Colorado, but we did it from one location rather than two. And so one of the interesting things is, you know, I had clients in the cities. I had already launched blue collar by that point, and I got clients that would drive for an hour just to get across town. Many of you operate in markets like that. And I'm like, wait a minute. I don't need another office 40 minutes away. And so we made some shifts and some different things. Guess what? The plan changed. But the plan got me started. Started. The plan got me going. And that's really what I want you to do today is really challenge and think about. The plan exists to get going, because once you get going, you've opened up a way forward. Now we kind of shift and we look and, okay, here's the challenge that arises. But ultimately, you're going to get to where you want to go. You're just going to make some shifts in different things. Kind of that airplane analogy that I forget the exact statistic, but, you know, an airplane, if I'm flying from Phoenix to Florida to go see some of our Florida team, I'm not going to be on track very often in that airplane. It's going to be off to the right, it's going to be off to the left, it's going to be back and forth, back. But ultimately, we're going to get where we're going. The same is true for you. And sometimes your destination might change. I might say, I'm going to the east coast and I'm going to go see my team in Florida. And then all of a sudden, it's like, hang on, wait, there's a hurricane coming. There's a big shift going on. Well, my plan just changed a little bit. Now I'm going to go, okay, well, I'm going to go on upstate New York and go see Christy's dad, right? I'm going to go ahead and make a shift in my plan, whatever that is. The same is true with you and your life and your business and your finance and your relationships. That's what it's ultimately about. And so really massive achievement comes when you take full responsibility for your actions and when you start following through as a responsibility. So, you know, I don't know about you, but I used to have a hard time writing a plan because I was afraid of what if I write it down and then it doesn't happen. Or what if I share it with my team? And at the time of this recording, I'm working on a 25 year plan for my team at Blue collar. So I rolled out a 10 year plan at last year's annual meeting and now we're growing so fast, we've added so much team and I have another level of clarity for where I want this business and this incredible team to go and how we can help you more and more in the marketplace. So I don't have any intention of ever selling this business. I want to grow and continue. In 25 years, I'm only going to be 75 years old. I'll be a pup. I'm just getting started, right? And so a 25 year plan. But as little as three years ago, certainly before I got sober, there's no way I could have been like, oh my God, I'm going to think about a 25 year plan. That was so daunting. That was so now what I know is, hey, I'm going to roll a 25 year plan, partner with the universe. And I don't even know some of the technology that'll exist in five years from now. But I know that as I get that plan going, we'll continue to evolve, we'll adjust, we'll learn, we'll shift. That's what it's ultimately all about. So what about you? There's a lot of noise in the market. There's a lot of fear in the market. There's a lot of different perspectives. Right? Well, you, you know, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. You have to operate this way, you have to operate that way. At the end of the day, your business, your role as a leader, regardless of whether you own stock or not, you own your position. And when you own your position, that means you take ultimate responsibility for everything that you do and don't do as a leader in the home service space. And when you take that level of responsibility, really, really good things happen and you're able to go, oh, okay, so now when I follow through on my responsibility, I get feedback. And sometimes feedback tie back to last episode again. Sometimes feedback looks like a problem, but it's actually a gift. And it's a gift of action. See, action begets results and results are simply feedback. You know, I've said forever. As long as I've been a professional speaker, I've said there's no such thing as failure. And that might have even began in my mind as a defense mechanism. Because as I was getting B's and C's and D's in high school and being told I was a failure and being told I was not going to amount to much, I probably created a defense mechanism going, no, it's not failure. My goal is to get out of high school, and I did that. And I also had a goal to play baseball in college. And I was certainly blessed that I. I got that one semester in before I partied my way out of that opportunity. And as I say that, it's funny because it could be a problem that I left college. And I also could say it was the biggest gift that I ever gave myself. I put myself through some hell in between there. I got in a lot of trouble. I went to jail. I had to join the United States army to learn discipline and to get my mind straight. I went to war. I had all these different things. I've had more than one marriage in my life. I've had to learn some stuff. And people go, my God, that's not a freaking problem. All that brought me to where I'm sitting today, having a conversation with you. Married to the greatest woman I've ever met in my life, the lovely Christy, enjoying great rewards and success with my business team members around me, with the people that I get to work with, clients like you that are already working with us, clients that are you, that will work with us in the future, whatever that is. I'm so freaking blessed. And. And it's taken a lot of pain and a lot of challenge and a lot of plans. Your plan is about you, my friend. And the purpose of your plan is to simply get going. That's what it's about. Get it as close as you can, get as much clarity as you can, and then get in the game and get started, my friend. I'm Kenny Chapman, your host of leadership in a nutshell for home service professionals. This has been episode 68. Do me a favor, give us a, like a rating, a review. Would love to keep growing this community with your help. Please forward this episode to somebody you care about until we talk. Make it a better than fantastic week, and I'll see you real soon. Thanks, everybody.