75. Additional Awareness Required

Foreign. Hey, my friend, welcome back to leadership in a nutshell, where we're cracking the code of the driven mind for the home service industry, for blue collar leaders, for people just like you and me that want more out of life, out of their team, out of executing their greatness. And today it is episode 75, and I'm pumped to talk to you about additional awareness required. That's right. We've got to up level this awareness. I talked about this just briefly last week, and I want to do a little deeper dive where, you know, I was talking about the setback being the setup last week and the setup for the next level. And here's the reality, you can't truly honor that setback. And so for some of you, I know that was a little bit of a challenging episode to kind of get your head around. And I'm going to continue to challenge you. You know, here we are, 75 episodes into this podcast. You can see how it's evolving, changing as I continue to raise my conscious levels and bring my very best each and every week for you, it's gonna continue to change as Kenny Chapman changes, as the universe changes, as we all change in collective consciousness. So here I want you to just think today about where you can up level your awareness a little bit. Where some of the pain and the challenge in your business and your communication, your leadership, where there's a lack of awareness that can help solve some of those things. None of us like a blind spot, right? When I'm doing high level leadership coaching with team, working specifically with CEOs and presidents around, what are your blind spots? And invariably I'll have an intuition or a gut feeling or something is going on and I'll start prodding and asking questions. And sometimes it's a couple of calls or sessions before something shows up. When we're like, what's the blind spot? And the key to life is tied to the questions that we ask. I've said that for years. I believe in that. If you want better results in your life, if you, in just about any area, look at the questions that you're asking and see where you can kind of kick that up a notch. And so when you ask better questions, you get different answers. But it takes a certain level of awareness to be able to honor the answer. As the subconscious mind doesn't care about good or bad. It doesn't care about right or wrong. It cares about running the same program that it's been running. And that's why it can be challenging when we reprogram the Subconscious mind to create that repetition, to rewire our neuro associations in the brain, which run on autopilot. Because there's a bigger thing going on here with us than we realize. My book about leadership laws that'll come out in 22. I'm talking about that specifically. Where there's some things going on in your business, in your life, in your relationships, in your communication, in your finances that you don't realize that is happening because you haven't heightened your awareness. No different than right now. I want you to think about the fact that you are breathing. And you had not thought about that possibly today if you meditate. And by the way, when you focus on breathing and meditation, that can be a little bit of a distraction too. I won't get into that. But the. The fact is, a lot of meditation practice focuses on breath. And that's one of the only times that any of us really stop and go, okay, yeah, I'm breathing. Did you notice how you wanted to take a breath when I was talking about that? So I did one with you. But here. Here's the reality. Until I said that, you weren't aware of something that was running in the background. You are breathing. There's another one. Your blood is circulating through your veins right now. Whoa, hang on. Wait a minute. I don't even know how to feel that. But I suppose it is happening, right? You're blinking your eyes when. Oh, man, now I squint when I blink. Right? There's just so many things that go on in the universe that we don't pay attention to. And I'm not asking you to walk around in such a heightened consciousness level. Okay, I just blinked. Okay, I just swallowed. Okay, I just took a breath. But I'm asking you to pay attention to what you do throughout your day. And as we elevate, as we get more aware of what's going on, it's an incredible thing. And so let me ask you a question. What frustrates you the most? Just give yourself a moment as a listening group, like right now. Let's just kind of think about this. What frustrates you the most? And as you think about that, here's something that I want to drop on you as a thinking point. Whatever your answer was, that's probably not it. Your relationship and your thought process around what you said is what frustrates you. The frustration that you're frustrated with it is what frustrates you. And you go, kenny, you're getting a little deep and crazy. But I want you to understand that and realize that, you know, you might want to write this down if you're not driving. There's two things that I want you to really, really think about. And it takes awareness to help minimize the depth of the change curve when we create change. Now, I talk about that in six dimensions, 2.0, where, you know, change there. There can be a dip sometimes, But I want you to realize that you're in control of that. So there's two things I want you to write down and think about here. Number one, what we want, or I should say what we say we want, is not usually what we want. I know that the deeper work that I've done with human beings and life mastery from my life architecture, work with building and working with leadership teams and clients that are trying to solve communication, trying to help communicate with each other. I say what I want because that's what I think that I want. And a lot of times there's ego involved in that. And so I'm not aware enough to go, okay, is that what Kenny really wants at the core, or is that what Kenny's ego is sneaking in and saying that he wants? So we have to be aware to be able to ask that question and challenge that. So, number one, what we want is probably not what we want. And number two, what I get mad at is never what I'm actually mad at. So what I'm mad at, it's not really what I'm mad at. It's just what I think I'm mad at. So what are the big things? The sky's fallen. Saw something recently that we're in an economic crisis because of the labor shortage and different things. And I recently shared with a mastermind group at blue collar that there's an interesting thing when we start realizing, is it real this time? Because I started as a drain cleaner in 1994, and I had a hard time getting my first truck other than me, I had a hard time figuring it out. So I hired a buddy, and then I ran an ad, and I actually got a guy that was moving to town. And after John and Scott joined my team, I struggled from there on out, perhaps in certain ways, shapes or forms. And we got creative, and we did all kinds of things, and we grew the business, and that was all great, But I was telling myself, possibly a limiting belief at the time, that, oh, it's hard. I said it in 94. I said it in 99. I said it in 2004. I said it in 2009, 2015, and here we are right now. We're in 2021 at the time I'm recording this and it's hard to find people. I mean, that's fine if that's true now, but what's it gonna be when it's hard to get the avatar fix that's answering your phone or the AI or whatever it is, Right? So I just want you to be aware that you've been here before and you've solved it and you've said it before. And last week we talked about the setback. Maybe the setback you need is to be challenged with labor. But here's the reality. You're mad at the universe, you're mad at the market, you're mad at the media, you're mad at politics, you're mad at these things because you can't hire people. Where really what you're mad at is the fact that maybe you haven't created a culture, a magnet strong enough to attract the people that you need. There are, whatever business you're in, there are enough people getting up and going to work in that business somewhere in your market today that you could have it. You know, it's just one of those types of things. And so you think about, oh, if I was in the tech business, it's hard to get people. Is it hard to get people at Google and Amazon and, or Apple or, you know, Microsoft? I don't know. But here's what I know is certain people want to work for big companies, other people want to work for small companies. Some people like that kind of middle of the road company where it's not too big, but it's not too small. And here's the deal, lean into what you want. But sometimes what we think we want isn't what we want. I want this big, huge company. Do you? There's lawsuits, there's complexity, there's different challenges. That's okay. Just realize what you're signing up for and stop, you know, lying to yourself. The challenge is when I'm not aware enough to realize that that's not really what I want. But I'm just saying it, or my ego saying it, or the collective consciousness of the industry is saying, I've got to go. We've talked about it before on this podcast. Used to be 5 million was a big business. When I got into the space, even when I started coaching, 5 million was a good sized company. And then it's 10 million in three years from startup. And then it's like, oh, 20 million or nothing. Oh, now 100 million is just the decent sized business. In a lot of markets or a decent sized business in a lot of markets. That doesn't mean you need a 20, 40, $50 million business. What it means is you need to lean into your own emotional regulation. What do you really want? Who do you really want to be as a leader? That's what really, really matters to me. And let me also remind you here, my friend, the goal is not the goal. And I talked about last week how, you know, I said to you last week, goals can be limiting. And we said, what? Wait a minute, you're a goal guy, you're a producer, you're an expert coach. You're like, hang on, wait a minute, what are you talking about, Kenny? I'm all about goals. And that's great because they get us going and they get us, they give us a reason to go to a certain level and shoot for things and different things like that. That's all great. But I want you to also realize that the actual goal is not really the goal, because that's where it shows up. That what I think I want probably isn't what I really want. But that gets me going, that that builds my path forward, that helps me execute in the universe. Because the real goal is who I become by elevating my consciousness, by going through my self expression, my creative outlet. All the things that happen, the setback, being the setup, all the things that take as I'm going toward my goal. That's really the goal. Who I become as a human being, and that's your actual job as a human, is to become the best level of yourself, to raise your consciousness level, to influence and impact your team humanity by becoming all you can be. In the words of the United States army, which I gratefully am proud that I served in. But here's the thing. Let me just give you five things to do here. Let's get tactical for a minute. So what do I do, Kenny? Here's what I want you to do. Number one, be aware of your desires, your wants, so on and so forth. Like what do I want? And just kind of be aware of it. And one of the things that we have to do. So first we'll get aware. Second thing is slow down. You've got to slow down. That crazy mind. It's why, you know, the subhead of this podcast is breaking the code or cracking the code, rather of the driven mind. We have this monkey mind that goes nonstop and all that, and that's just kind of what we're aware of. Our subconscious is just going nonstop. So we've got to slow down the subconscious mind. And how do we do that? The third thing is executing meditation, contemplation practices, prayer, reflection. I kind of lump prayer, meditation, contemplation. Those can all be together, regardless of your own belief system, whatever that is. The caveat I would give you of being raised in a Christian environment and very devout Christian family that realizes when you say, oh, I pray every day, so I get a mental break. You know, Kenny, when you talk about your morning ritual and when you do certain things, I pray every day, so I get a mind break. Make sure that your prayer technique or what you're doing is not just you blasting and broadcasting to God what you want and what he's doing wrong. So just let's be clear about that and some of the Christians on the line. I might be able to get a yeah, I can see. I kinda have done that or I do that. Right. So that's not slowing down your subconscious mind. That's just venting to the higher power that you choose. Right. So the fourth thing is write things down. So first we become aware. Two, we slow down by three. Meditation, contemplation, prayer, reflection, and then we write. And I'm a fan of journaling, and I have a formal journal practice that I do in the morning. But then, then I'll do a mental download and I'll just write different times throughout the day when necessary. If I have a disturbance, if I have a quote setback, if I don't feel connected inside, if there's something going on, I'll write pros and cons list. I'll journal previous experience. I'll write down how. And I use the word journal as just writing. So I tried, quote unquote, to journal for probably 15, maybe 20 years, and I was never able to nail it until I took on the work that I do now and the rituals that I execute now. And so it's a matter of really just honoring and not doing it because some guru told you you're supposed to do it. Do it as a tool to help you with your emotional regulation and learning and awareness. There's not a better way to get clear about what's actually going on in that brain of yours than to write. Because then you slow down the subconscious mind and you can connect the conscious and the subconscious when you write, lastly, accept and allow what it is, where it is. Oh, I raised a lot of people don't want to raise. I'll speak for myself. I subconsciously didn't want to raise my awareness because I didn't like what I was seeing. I didn't want to accept. There were certain challenges I didn't want to accept. There were some areas that I of darkness in my life that I still needed to shine a light on. Man, let me just go ahead and turn the other cheek, so to speak, or whatever. So accept and allow it. It is what it is, so you might as well honor it. Allow it, and then you begin to work through that. More on that coming up next week where we're gonna dive into some communication stuff. So this has been episode 75. I hope you got some value. If you did, please make sure that you give us a rating. You know, if you're on a platform that allows reviews, I would be super honored. But one of the best things you can do is kick this over to somebody. Share this with your team. Share this with your leadership group. Just, hey, here's a 10, 15 minute a week thing that might just help elevate your consciousness. That's what I'm here to do. Thank you. Being a part of me, honoring my outward purpose until we talk, my friend. Make it better than fantastic week and I'll talk to you soon. Cheers.