Necessary Endings: How Letting Go Fuels Growth | E197

Foreign.

Welcome. This is Leadership is Feminine and I am Chris Plackey and this is 2025. We are now firmly planted in this new year and I'm leading a course for the month of January called Believe. One month to Believe. One year to achieve where my goal in that series of workshops and then the complimenting videos are. And then I've also turned that into a private podcast, which is super cool. And I've written a book and I'm including case studies from all the coaching calls. So keep, keep listening because you're going to find out how to get access to some of that once it's all ready. But what we're doing is we're really in this Believe course is challenging the belief that we have in believing and why so much of what we do in terms of goal setting and trying to create more of what we want and achieve in our lives, why we don't do the things that we say that we want to do, why we don't ever get to it. And so, you know, I've been studying this myself, other people, through the lens of coaching and learning and self understanding for decades and there's just a piece missing. So I'm having a lot of fun with the content. I actually, one of my clients said to me right afterwards, the first class, she's like, this is so cool. This is like the, the part behind manifesting that nobody ever talks about. And you know me, I love a little good woo, but I actually do think we can create what we want. I don't think that's woo at all. I think it's chemistry and focus and all the other things that come with that.

So today though, I want to talk to you about part of what I think is the belief process. And that's creating room and space for new achievements, new beliefs, new versions of living in a way that we, we maybe haven't allowed for or considered. I believe that every year we need to go through the process of considering what we want to purge. And there's a really good book out there called necessary endings by Dr. Henry Cloud. I hope I have that right. I will correct myself if I don't. Henry Cloud. Sorry, I had that wrong. Not McLeod, Henry Cloud. He's written quite a few really great books. He's a psychologist. And Necessary Endings for me is a favorite because it really talks about how we have to end certain things in order for there to be space for something new to grow. And he uses such a basic example of pruning a rose bush. Right. That we have to prune off sometimes even buds that are going to thrive that. That could do well. But there's so many buds on one branch that if we keep them all, none of them grow. They all are duds or they're all really small, but if we let quite a few of them go, then we can have these big, beautiful flowers, right? And so he uses that example that as we live, that is part of our role isn't just to acquire and take and get, but to also release and let go and move along. And we're not taught how to do that very well. I think we're taught to focus forward on what we want to bring into our lives, but I don't know that we are taught that releasing and letting go and allowing that transformation process to be a part of growth, right? Somehow it's always a loss. It's always loss. It's always.

Not great when people. Things. Experiences are cut from our lives. And so I want to just give you a minute today to kind of maybe rethink that, that there could be real truth to the let go. So the other book I read, this was years ago. You know, you just read a few books and they just sort of stick with you. And I think it has everything to do with, like, where you are in your life. And when that book comes in, it's not just the book. It's kind of like there was a message in there that I really needed when I heard it, and it stuck. And it's become, for me, this book has sort of stayed in my ether, like in my knowing of myself. And that book is the Millionaire Consultant by Alan Weiss, which probably doesn't resonate for a lot of you because you're not consultants and so forth. But he's a pretty. Pretty interesting business mind. And he's also kind of snarky and tough. And I sort of like his approach, especially when I need. I need some serious accountability. But I remember that he said two things in that book that just really resonated. The first one has nothing to do with this podcast, but I'll tell you what it was anyway. And he said, if you're still charging by the hour, you are an amateur.

And I remember reading that, thinking, oh, my God, I'm an amateur. This was so many years ago, right? And I was. I was charging by the hour. And of course then I got all this resistance from people when they would figure out or tell, like, you're charging this much per hour. And I. So it was such an interesting dynamic because that's when I switched to retainer, which is so much more aligned with my business belief system, right. That my goal is to be available to my client when they need the support, not to just charge you for my time. Who cares about my time? I want you to have access to my expertise and my support when you need it. That's why I do retainer programs. So anyway, that was the first one and the second one was his whole notion that every year you should cut the bottom 20% of your client list. And he had all sorts of parameters for what that 20% could be, right? Lowest paying, least productive. You could do it based on their participation, you could do it based on the industry, if the industry is no longer an industry that you're pursuing. Anyway. He had a lot of factors, but primarily his whole point was that usually people who are the longest term clients pay the less least amount. And so therefore if you want to create space for new clients, you have to cut the bottom 20.

So I remember thinking, wow, that's really an interesting concept. And I have developed my business slightly differently than what he would have recommended because I actually like to reward legacy clients. And so I don't cut based on price what they pay. I reward people who stay and they actually get to keep whatever their OG original pricing was. But I do cut in general in my business, people, clients who don't participate or contribute for themselves.

To the point where from my perspective, I'm like, why are we here? Right. That doesn't make any sense. So I do think there's tremendous value. So whatever kind of business you're in, I want you to sort of make a list of all of the elements that you and your business touch and, and this is something you can do for your life too. So I wrote down very briefly clients, vendors, even technology tools that you use in your business stuff in your life. This is definitely happening to me now. I'm recording this two days before I go to Hawaii. I leave on, on January 8th, I'm going to be gone. I'm doing a week long writing retreat as a client, which I'm so excited about. And then I'm going to stay in Hawaii. And then I have my annual January Hawaii retreat at the end of the month. And so my goal before I leave to go is to purge stuff so that when I come back at the end of the month, I am not walking back into the energy of 2024. You could do that in a day, you could do it right now, you could do that immediately. But you have to be willing to. I Believe if, if you haven't touched something for 12 months, it's gotta go. Why do you have it if you haven't looked at it, touched it? Like I'm looking behind my left shoulder and I see these books here and even though they look pretty on the shelf, I don't look at them, I don't want them. I'm going to get rid of them and somebody else can enjoy them. Right. I want to create a lot of space in my life. So stuff, clothes obviously and then relationships. Are there relationships in your life that really are not serving you or you're not serving them.

Is it time to let them go? And the thing is is that doesn't have to be like.

You tell them, I'm firing you as a relationship. It just means like, no, I'm going to move forward. I'm going to stop worrying about should I text so and so or should I try and get together with them? I'm just going to let it go. I'm going to let it go.

The also the other piece is your team. There are a lot of philosophies that echo the same that every year we should purge the bottom 20% of the team and keep up leveling the performance of the business by not bringing people with us who don't contribute, you know, interest. Interestingly, I just said this on my believe call, but I recently had a client reach out which was lovely to hear from her and she was telling me that unfortunately this, she and I haven't worked together for several years. She found out someone in one of her businesses was embezzling from her and it's awful. It's such a horrible feeling. And so for so many reasons to, to know that somebody was able to steal from your business and you didn't know it. Right. It's just a, it's creepy. But it made me kind of think about how we all. It seems like most people that I meet have at least one person on the team who is not performing to the expectation of their role. Right. What I say all the time is they're not fulfilling the promise of their position. They might be a individual contributor, team member, they might be a manager, they might be a director, they might be your right hand person. But they are not cutting it, they are not getting it done. But you're paying them. So if you're paying someone, let's say $5,000 a month to do, to, to, to create and deliver a result out of the role that they're in and they're not doing that, how Is that not stealing?

And you're contributing to the steal because you keep them.

So is that embezzling? I don't know. Like, it's such an interesting thing. We make such a big deal if we hear about someone embezzling $60,000, but we sit by because of our own emotional discomfort, and we let people stay in our business and we pay them $60,000, we're not doing a job.

It's an interesting way to think about. It might make you mad. So I want you to think about what is the bottom 20% in all of those different aspects of your life, and you might have others. So it's like, almost like drying, making, like a header. Clients and writing and vendors. Writing, tech, writing stuff, right? Clothes, books, lamps, wall art, garage crap. What else? Right? Your personal relationships, your team members.

What else? Jewelry might be something that you're like, okay, because I just. I do. I do love them. What is it? What's her name? Marie Kondo. I love that concept of, does this bring me joy? Like, when I pick it up and I hold it, do I love this or do I think it's ugly? But I'm keeping it so that I have it in case I need it. Right? And the minimalists, those two guys I remember, they say, if it's under $20 and you can get it within 20 miles of your house.

Get rid of it. Let somebody else have it.

You can get it again. Right? It's what I think about all the, like, things that are in my husband's toolkit. Tool, Tool box, like, all these little screws and nails. And I'm like, couldn't we just maybe go get new ones? Why do we keep so many of them? But that's just me, right? So I'm sure he would say the same about some of the things that I have in my little world. So I want. This isn't a very long podcast because I think in order to create space for new belief, I think in order for us to redefine how we want this year to go, I actually was going to share with you. I was listening to my Chani Apple this morning. Chani Nichols, who is a former client of mine and just a wonderful, wonderful astrologist, but she said this really cool question, and I loved it, which was, how do you want to consider the direction your life is moving in? I love that question. How do you want to consider the direction your life is moving in? And so with the weight of old crap, it. It impinges. It interferes with your ability to set the direction you want to go because you have to drag it all with you and figure out how to fit it in. It's like I say so often, right? Like so many of us are looking at what we have, who we have, especially in our business, and we're trying to decide what game to play based on what we have. Instead of saying, no, this is the game I want to play now, who and what do I need to to win that game?

That's a totally different way to think, right? So.

We have to be willing to release all that has served us, but no longer does in order to allow what can come in that we don't even know about yet.

Right. I've had so many times in my life where there's been like a thing, literally like a box or a. There's a box right on the right hand side of me right now. It's driving me crazy. It's been there and I keep asking for help. Super heavy. I can't do it by myself. And then I forget about it, blah, blah, blah. But there's been plenty of these times in my life where I've just. There's been something sort of insidiously there.

And when I finally get it gone, something amazing happens. Some money comes in, someone calls me. I didn't expect to hear from. And I do believe in the truth about things and stuff. Having energy, including people, right. I've had so many of my clients who finally fire the person that has been like the albatross, the. The chain. They've had to drag emotionally and and energetically through the business. And then they finally go, and then they're immediately like, I cannot believe how magical everything feels right now. Everything feels so much easier. Like it's because it is.

All that fear that you had that it would be terrible, fueled you. Keeping someone in your business when the truth is releasing them is going to create so much space and freedom for them too.

That's the part. I think a lot of people hear that and they think that's really mean. You can't just let. No, it's better for them.

Right? I got laid off, what, 14 years ago.

Best thing that ever happened to me was getting laid off.

Best thing at the time. I'm sure there was a lot of fear around it for people that cared about me, for me, I was really worried. Best thing ever. So let's change the way we think. We don't have to be assholes, we don't have to be difficult, we don't have to be mean. But if we know that there is are parts of our organization that are no longer serving the mission, that are no longer delivering the results that we need. We have to let that go. We have to let our stuff go. We have to let our thoughts go.

What once served you and no longer does. It's time for a graceful exit. So I wish you luck. Go to the Purge. Talk to you next time.