Stop Looking Outside

Well, hello and welcome. I'm so glad you're here. I'm Kris Plachy, and I want to talk to you today about, um, something that is sort of inherent to the way that I think. And I've come to realize it has been both my, um, as I've said in so many other ways, this has been my superpower and my poison. Um, and I want to put it in context in the way that I experience it, but I wonder if there might not be the truth here for a lot of you listening. And so when I started leading people, so when I got a new management job, I was managing the people who did what I did. And in most companies, not just the one I was in, what, what most people do when someone is doing well at something, they tell everyone, hey, so-and-so is doing well at something. You should do what she does. Right? And so they, what they do is they, and, and this is what so many podcasts do now, right? Everybody does this. They interview people and say, what did you do to be successful? And everybody then is like taking notes on what they do. And so in the environment that I was in, when I was brand new, I would do the same. Like, oh my gosh, these people are so successful. What do they do? And I would emulate the do what they did and I wasn't getting those results. And so I, I wondered like, okay, so that's not working. And what I realized over time through my own trial and error and through my own discovery, because I was in a sales position right out of college, and I was pretty bad at it. Not gonna lie, I was pretty bad at it. I was surrounded by people who were really good at it, and so I just initially thought, I can't do this because I'm doing what they're doing and I'm failing, and so therefore I'm not good at it because I'm doing what they're doing and I'm failing, so I must not be good at it. Right? Does that sound familiar? And then I had this sort of moment. So it was between like having a conversation with a mentor and he told me, he was a Xerox sales guy. He told me, he was amazing. He told me all the things that have stuck with me forever, right? People don't fail, they just quit before they succeed. That was one, stuck with me forever. And he also used to talk about, you have to sort of wear things before they fit. You have to step into them. That was, that was a, a version of what I talk about. All of us talk reference now about really becoming that future version of you, right? Like who is the version of you that is winning and is succeeding in this space? You gotta step into her before you are her to be her. You can't wait to be her to achieve like her. And so what happened though after that is I went back to my desk as, And all I did was call people all day and try and recruit people all day. And again, failing, failing. And I just said to myself one day, I'm just going to assume everyone is here to buy. Everyone's here to enroll. And I thought I had made this up, but I hadn't. But let's just give me that credit for the 24-year-old that I was at the time. I'm just going to assume. And so I started doing what I called the assumptive close. So, and I would just give them the application and I would busy myself with something else. And it was so uncomfortable and awkward, but it actually started working, right? So then fast forward to becoming a manager. Now, I had been very successful at that other job, the job that I, of the people that I am now managing, I did really well.. And now I had to manage people to be, to do really well. And the temptation was to tell them what I did and they should do it too, and then they'll be success, successful, right? But that's not how, that is not where success lives. And so what I learned then was there's the stuff that people do, but then there's the actual reason we get results. We— whatever that is, y'all, it doesn't matter. We could be talking about making money. We could be talking about scaling your business. We could be talking about losing weight. We could be talking about adding more collagen to your skin, which seems much more relevant to me right now. We could be talking about getting better at pickleball, which is on my list too. It doesn't matter. The temptation is to buy what other people did to be successful. Now, is there value in learning from other people? Always. But their recipe will not be yours. And so I've always seen this current, this, this undercurrent, right? So there's all this noise. If you, if you sort of imagine like the ocean, which is one of my favorite reference points, Ocean is a good metaphor for so many things, but let's just imagine the ocean, right? The ocean up here on the top, there's waves and there's current and there's all sorts of stuff happening and there's a lot of noise. There can be white water and there can be boats and there can be all this stuff. So most people stay at the top, they're at the top of the ocean, they're floating around and they're looking at everybody else's boats and they're looking at all the stuff and they're navigating all this friction and noise, believing that that boat's better than my boat, and this is better than this, this is better than that, so I better go do this, and I better buy that, and I better do this. And the person that they're not connecting to is themselves. They are attributing their ability to succeed in their lives and in their business to finding it from somebody else. And it's been the biggest source of frustration for me, honestly, in the work that I did for so many years in helping women be better leaders. Because first of all, people think they're supposed to just be good at it. That was a— that, that's an objection that drove me crazy. Second of all, People don't like it, so they don't wanna learn it. They just want other people to just do their jobs and then they'll be fine. Why should I have to learn leadership? That is gonna slow me down. That's gonna take too much time. That doesn't make money. Ha! All my clients have gotten really rich, y'all, because they learned how to lead. But that's the second point. Third is that other people are selling all these entrepreneurs the real way. To make more money, the real way to scale your business. And they don't listen to what they know because under the top of that sea, that ocean with all the stuff and the boats and all that, right? What's down below? Have you ever been down there? Oh, it's heaven. It's quiet. It's beautiful. It's just you. It's a little scary. But it's just you. What you want has to be found within you first. So just like that 24-year-old me that was like trying everything everybody else was doing and I was failing, and then I finally thought, wait, I'm just gonna do it this way. This is the way that feels right to me. And I did, and it worked. And when I started this business, I was doing all, oh my heavens, right? Trying to start a coaching business, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the things until I realized, oh wait, I'm really good at this. I'm just gonna do this. And I did. Your answer is not in other people, Mama. Stop looking outside. You're confusing yourself. You are kneecapping yourself. What, what you do need, what we all need, is conversations that help us reveal our own powerful intuitive knowing. And then you need it built on. So what happens in conversations I have with my clients, I'm not telling them how to do it. I'm listening to them tell me that, that all it takes is for me to listen to you for 5 minutes. You will speak your truth to me. I, you'll gonna tell me everything. You need to know. My job is to then take what you've just said and help you turn that into the strategy instead of seeking all these other strategies and tactics and making them fit for you. Stop it. You know, and if, if you're sitting here and listening to me, And saying, no, I don't know. I, you do. I know, you know, you may not like what you know. You may have tried it already. It didn't work. You may think it's too simple. You may not really wanna do it, but you know. And so the reason that I am, you know, you know, and re— and positioning the work that I do with my clients much more rooted in wisdom than tactic is that wisdom success, success born out of wisdom and authentic knowing is totally dominating over tactical short-term wins. Success born out of your core wisdom will last. But I know you're giving it away. I know that you are making choices every day that are compromising that wisdom because you are afraid people will leave you. You have fear about failure. You lack self-trust. You don't believe in what you believe should happen. You have a dream, you have a vision, you have an idea, but you don't see the path, so it feels futile. So instead, you busy yourself with other people's recipes. And if there's one thing, there's so many reasons that I'm struggling with the world that we're in today, because I mean, all it takes is 37 seconds on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, and you can be immediately convinced that you don't know what you're doing, but they do. And for $37, you too can But what I think is more important is that you invest in your own mind. I have a client that I've worked with now for 2 years and she has this post that she's done a few times in different ways. And it's one of my favorite. She talks about how she's invested over $2 million in her own mind. And that to me is the way I would love everybody to think. You get better Everything else does, mama. You get more aligned, everything else does. When you learn how to connect with what you know is already truth for you, it will change your life. Are you ready for that? You are the asset. The business doesn't go without you. Your beautiful life, it won't go without you. We need you to invest in you. Not this tactic. So I'm going to conclude this podcast because I'll start ranting really loud and then it gets annoying. What I want you to do is sit after this and I want you to just listen, just listen to yourself. If I knew the answer, if it was readily available to me for whatever this is, whether it's in your life, your personal life, in your partnership, in your marriage, something you're dealing with, with your kids, with your parents, with your house, with your neighbors, with your business, with your team, with your colleague. If you knew, if you just knew, what's the answer? Write it down. Now you have to ask yourself, okay, I really know. Why haven't I done that? Why haven't I taken action for that? That's what you have to explore. And that is likely where the strategic part of what someone like me or other coaches who are good at what they do will help you with. Not to give you the idea, but to help you build the strategy that's different so that you execute and you achieve what you really want. Even if it's hard, even if it's uncomfortable, even if you have a lot of fear around it. When you know, you know. And the reason you're stuck isn't because you don't know, it's because you know and you haven't taken the action. It has to be born out of your wisdom, not someone else's tactic. Okay? I'll talk to you again next time. Thanks for tuning in.