You Are Not Your Mistakes

Hey everybody. Kenny Chapman, the blue collar coach, coming to you live with this week's video version of Freedom Friday. Focus Now. Last week I posed a question to you. What's going well, because I feel it's very important that sometimes we need to look at that as entrepreneurs and leaders and organizations that what are we doing well so I can continue to do those things well. And what behaviors can I bring into other areas of the business that I want to focus on? Now today I want to tell you something very clear and I want you to hear this loud and clear. You are not your mistakes, okay? People make mistakes. People have things that happen. I think the world has to call them mistakes. We'll put that in air quotes because all it is is an experience. What if you said I had an experience that didn't work out exactly the way that I had planned in my mind or the vision that I saw of how this might play out? Lets backtrack. Many, many years ago, I was about four years into owning my company. Well, not even that, I guess three maybe. And I was trying to get my business out of the home office. I started my business in my home. I used to have tech meetings when I had two technicians at my kitchen table. Many of you remember those days. Many of you can relate to it. I was trying to justify the overhead of moving my business and I said, well, if I found another small service business that already has a location, maybe I could just move in there and I'll run two businesses, right? So what do I go find? A diaper cleaning and delivery service now? A cloth diaper cleaning and delivery service. Some of you are going, what is that? Doesn't Pampers make everything right? Yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, it's all about saving the environment. It's about the better tushy on your child, different things like this. And so I said, hey, we can do that. And it was an absolute disaster, ladies and gentlemen. It was a mess. I hated my life for 18 months from the day that I closed in that business until the day that I sold. It was a very painful time. And I was running my drain cleaning only business at the time and trying to run this other company. But it justified me getting it out of my, out of my home office. Now if I had that to do again, I would do it very differently. And the reality is I learned some valuable lessons. But one of the things I want to share is I called up my uncle who was a big mentor of mine at the time, and I said, man, this is what happened. I Just sold this. Now, let's be clear. I lost $55,000 in 18 months, okay? Now, nobody likes to lose money. I didn't have that kind of money back then to lose or to win or anything. And so now I have to make payments on my debt that I incurred from this company for years to come after this fact. Major mistake, right? Big business failure, right? Call up my uncle, my mentor said, hey, here's what happened. I just closed. Da da da da da da. Sold that thing. Finally, I'm out of it. But I lost 55 grand. Pause. You know, Kenny, I think that's the best thing that could have happened to you. I'm going. What are you nuts? That wasn't your dough. That was my dough that just got lost. So easy for you to say that. It's a good thing I said no. Wait a minute. How can you possibly say that? I took offense to that. I took it personal. He said, because you've been split, focused, and you haven't been growing the business that your primary business, the plumbing and drain cleaning business, is where you need to place your focus so you can generate what you can. You haven't maximized the ability of that company yet. You need to focus there. Wow. So now, was it a mistake? No. Early on, I whetted my appetite for multiple companies. Only until a couple years ago when I started the full on blue collar success group have I become running two different businesses again. And now I do it far differently. And guess what? I learned a lot from that experience. You are not your mistakes. You are not your current reality. You've created your current reality. Good or bad own that you. And no, they say this too shall pass. Right? Well, whatever your results are right now as you wrap up, 2013 will not be the same in 2014. If you've had a great year, that may or may not change, but it won't be the same. Okay, if you have a bad year this year, next year doesn't have to repeat this year. Results do not mean that the same results come again. The daily decisions, the daily choices, the daily application creates your new reality. So what do you want in 2014? What do you want as we look forward to the next year ahead? You can create it, but you might have to make some different choices. You are not your mistakes. Mistakes don't happen anyway. We only have experience. I'm Kenny Chapman, the blue collar coach. Until we talk again, have a better than fantastic week and I'll see you next time.