[00:00:01.820] - Brandon
[00:00:02.830] - Chris
Welcome back to another episode of the MRM podcast. I'm Chris
[00:00:06.390] - Brandon
and I'm Brandon. Join us as we discuss business, life and legacy.
[00:00:11.430] - Chris
It's business time
[00:00:13.200] - Brandon
y'ellow, my friend.
[00:00:14.800] - Chris
Those tacos were so good.
[00:00:16.650] - Brandon
Oh, gosh, they were good. I hit the Taco Bowl, if you will. There's so many directions to take that.
[00:00:24.850] - Chris
It's called pozole
[00:00:26.600] - Brandon
that's probably a far better thing to end with than Taco bowls.
[00:00:31.760] - Chris
So I don't know what to call this episode yet, so maybe let's just see where the conversation goes. But I had a reflection the other day, as I was leaving the office, walking back to my car... I'd had a really good day, and I was thinking about, why did I have a good day? You know ...
[00:00:49.230] - Brandon
What Categorized it as good
[00:00:51.660] - Chris
exactly what made it good? And why do I feel so good? I just kind of reflecting on that. And what it came down to was I had a really disciplined day.
[00:01:03.380] - Chris
Like, I had some things that were within my power to push off because you and I were partners, were the boss, we're each other's boss... But nobody is holding us accountable. Right. So I had a couple of these tasks, some documents I was trying to finish, communications for something we were doing, and I felt like putting it off to tomorrow. I was like, you know, it was about 5:30 6:00 o'clock as I was finishing these last couple of items, like, I just want to go home. I just want to go sit on the back deck, and I powered through, and I was just reflecting on the active me powering through and not sluffing it off.
[00:01:42.360] - Chris
Now, the other part of the story courses, I told you I would have it done.
[00:01:46.220] - Brandon
Yes.
[00:01:46.440] - Chris
So I knew you would be watching for in your email.
[00:01:49.070] - Brandon
Yes. On pins and needles, mind you.
[00:01:51.710] - Chris
Yeah. And so that was certainly part of it that this was something that I said I was going to do. And so I'm thankful in the moment I chose to just do it. But I think that's a struggle that I think we have as owners and leaders sometimes... It's well within our right, I guess if you want to say it that way. To just leave something on our to do list, to just go home before that thing that we set out to do is done, because. Well, who's going to say anything about it?
[00:02:20.870] - Chris
Right. One of your downline leaders, they're not gonna call you out on it unless you've specifically trained them to, which is a whole nother podcast topic. Right. Right. But let's just face it, there's all these little moments where we can push things off, cut a corner here and there, and probably no one's going to call us out on it. As I'm thinking about this I'm like, okay, what was my last, really kind of cruddy day? And it was just a few days before that
[00:02:46.790] - Brandon
or in my case the day before
[00:02:49.330] - Chris
you know, when you end the day, and your baseline level of anxiety is just higher.
[00:02:55.350] - Chris
Your frustration level, whatever, whatever you're taking home to your family, I could quickly remember. Okay. Yeah, that was Tuesday it was a rough day. And what was it about the rough day? Well, Ironically, it was exactly the opposite. I had things that I just struggled to start, and then I got to the end of my day, and I checked a few boxes, but I just had a lot of things undone because I just failed to really start to just commit to doing the thing and how crummy that felt at the end of the day having these gaps.
[00:03:25.150] - Chris
And I remember on that Tuesday, I don't remember the specifics, but I remember one of them was one that I said I was going to do, like, we were really trying to get it done that day. I didn't I just got to hit eject just one of those days where I kind of gave up on my plan. And so I'm thinking all of this is happening...This was Friday afternoon, Friday evening, I guess, as I'm walking out of the office and heading to my car, I'm thinking all these things, and I'm thinking about integrity.
[00:03:51.550] - Chris
It's funny to me how we in business, but particularly in service companies, we love to throw integrity around. Like we're looking for people of integrity when it comes to hiring as a company. Integrity is one of our core values. I'm a person of integrity. This kind of stuff, like, we get so used to hearing that and saying those things. And I thought to myself, well, that Tuesday of last week when I just kind of sluffed off on the plan I'd given myself, did I have integrity?
[00:04:21.570] - Chris
I don't think so, because I set out to do something, and then I allowed myself to not do it. And it was conscious. It was like I'm tired. I'm just having a hard time getting in the groove. One of the areas where I struggle the most with this is with writing because it's such a creative endeavor. And when I'm not feeling it, quote, unquote or just the words aren't coming to me as easily as I hoped I delay it, I push it out. ..And then it's 430 in the afternoon, and I said I was going to do this thing, and that's where the rubber meets the road.
[00:04:48.160] - Chris
It's like, okay, somehow I got to find a way to do this creative thing because I said I was going to. And I realized looking back over my career, I don't know, I think there's a theme there .When I'm living a disciplined life now working with clients, right? When I'm living out the leadership behaviors and the practices and the routines and the time management strategies that we're teaching to our clients, I feel so much less stress personally. Like when I'm actually doing, basically, I'm walking the walk, even though nobody else knows what I'm noticing.
[00:05:26.500] - Chris
Is it affects me. Like it affects the way I see myself, my emotions on those days, when I just kind of sluff off, I cut corners because I can, because nobody's correcting me. This is our game. This is my role, right? When I get lazy and I allow myself to finish lazy, that's when all of that anxiety, that imposter syndrome, those negative stories start to cycle in my head. But there's just some kind of powerful effect there when I'm working the disciplines, when I'm really conscious of commitments I've made not just to others, but to myself.
[00:06:02.500] - Chris
And when I make those things matter, even when it's a pain in the ass, even when I'm tired, even when I can, and I could easily just go home and enjoy myself in the back patio. But when I stick to the discipline, there's something really important that happens there.
[00:06:20.830] - Brandon
Yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. There's almost, like, this element of we feed... Like, life is challenging in and of itself. I don't think there's anybody listening that wouldn't agree with that. There's going to be plenty of ups and downs. Our businesses, right. They're kind of caged chaos at times. I mean, there's all sorts of things that affect that. And then we just compound the effect of those things when we don't do the things we can control. But I don't always do a great job of preemptively thinking through that.
[00:06:52.760] - Brandon
Like, a lot of times, your examples are great because it's easy for me to look back with some hindsight and say, oh, yeah, no, I see what you're saying, but it's hard for me to live that out consistently and proactively. Remind myself like I'm faced with a choice right now. Remember the impact of this, when you make the wrong choice, not necessarily assigning good or bad value to it, but it's just like, what happens? What are the natural consequences of deciding A or B on this?
[00:07:16.240] - Brandon
I think the other thing, too, is this. It's this conversation, I think that has popped up in pieces and other episodes. And I think there's just kind of this common theme about a lot of the things that we discuss over time, but it's this idea of building trust with yourself because it who was I talking to? I was actually having a really lengthy conversation with somebody about this the other day and how basically ourselves have already experienced years of us not following through on different things.
[00:07:45.860] - Brandon
I mean, honestly, we have some amazing people in our sphere of influence, amazing people, people I'm humbled to spend time around. And the reality of it is, though, is they're still humans, and the humanity of them is making a lot of mistakes.
[00:07:58.530] - Chris
We're all the same, right?
[00:08:00.230] - Brandon
Yeah. I mean, these are high caliber, high function people, and we still have lots of little scenarios where we just over time over the years, have not started something on Monday when we said we were going to start it on Monday, not committed to the exercise routine we said we were going to commit to. Not made that appointment with the doctor over and over and over again. We told ourselves we would. So there's these literally years of built up opportunities where yourself and I think this is really hard for people to understand is that we have two selves that are constantly at odds.
[00:08:30.680] - Brandon
One is this thing, this person that we're building that we want to move towards, and this one that's kind of in the background, always going...
[00:08:37.760] - Chris
Tugging at our sleeves.
[00:08:39.350] - Brandon
Oh, really? Yeah, right.
[00:08:40.320] - Brandon
Oh, you're going to do that just like the last five times you didn't. So at times, I feel like that then just becomes one more thing. Like when I check out early, when I don't follow through on that commitment I made to you or myself, it's just one more thing getting piled into this account of "I told you you wouldn't follow through for yourself." It's another thing that's feeding that untrusting part about yourself. And so I think an element of what you're talking about is the more diligent we are getting these little wins...
[00:09:11.310] - Brandon
We see something, we just pick it up, throw it out. Right. We say that we're gonna go fix the gate, so we just get up or for ass and go fix the gate. It's like every time we do that, there's this opportunity to celebrate, to look back at yourself and say, yeah, take that. I told you I'd do that thing, and we can start mounting all these wins that support who we're trying to be. Like, we begin to believe ourselves, so that when we talk about executing at this level, achieving these goals, we can actually do them.
[00:09:41.680] - Brandon
And what's funny is, if we're honest, how many times a day are you actually functioning in congruence with that? Like, you really are aligned with this person you're establishing that you're trying to commit to being more times probably than you're not. Yet, those little failures carry so much weight, because there's almost, like, just that thing that's just waiting to be like I told you so. So I think the way I'm relating to what you're talking about is I just want myself to be so confident in me when I say I'm gonna do X, Y, and Z, and so I'm desperate to get these wins.
[00:10:17.190] - Brandon
It's really important for me to throw another W on the board, because I want to be able to look myself in the mirror and say, hey, I'm gonna do X, and myself immediately goes, damn right to get it right. So I don't know if that's where you're starting, but that's where my mind immediately goes as you explain this idea.
[00:10:32.420] - Chris
At the risk of sounding like I'm kind of naval gazing and just picking up the lint in my belly button. But I do... I've been thinking about this for the last five or six days because I see all the areas of my life this touches. And so I had a funny story. I was waiting to share this at a future episode. So we launched our podcast here this last week, and one of our clients texted me and said, hey, the new podcast really, really great. Of course, my ego is like, oh, right on people like it.
[00:11:01.620] - Chris
We're good ... Whatever. And I said, oh, that's awesome. And then I don't know. A few minutes later, he responded back and said, yeah, episode eight is really connecting with me. And I had to look back at the list and be like, oh, yeah, episode eight, Leadership and Self Deception. And then immediately I started to go through, okay, what was in that episode? And so instead, I brought it up on Spotify. My wife is sitting on the back deck with me, and we started listening to it, and I'm a little bit, Ah, I mean, a little embarrassed to say this, but I was actually enjoying listening myself in the podcast.
[00:11:30.010] - Chris
I'm like, I'm actually getting into our own podcast almost as much as I would some other ones that I follow. Right. I've heard this before I came up with it, you know, and my wife is kind of going along with it. She might have thought it was pretty nerdy at the time, but
[00:11:43.370] - Brandon
oh yeah no doubt.
[00:11:44.750] - Chris
Then all of a sudden I get rocked because we're listening to this part of the podcast, and I know what I'm about to say. I'm like, oh, crap, I've been caught.
[00:11:54.700] - Chris
And here's what I mean. So in that podcast, if you haven't listened to episode eight, you gotta go back to it. It really is good. It's so good. I like listening to it. But I talk about this book, Leadership and Self Deception, and how it's discussing this concept of we know call it our conscience. For those of you who are religious, maybe you call it the Holy Spirit, whatever. Like, we have these things that we're presented with that we know we ought to do, and it could be in our business.
[00:12:21.920] - Chris
It could be. Hey, I'm asking my team to upload documentation of our client interactions and notes, and I talked with this client today. I didn't put anything in dash or gazingal or anything else.
[00:12:31.250] - Chris
Right?
[00:12:31.460] - Chris
It's just little things like those things that we know we ought to do. And then as simple as, you know what I know, my wife gets really stressed when the kitchen is a mess, and we got three kids, all school age. The house is, it's a constant state of pickup and disarray at this stage of things. And so for me, it reminded me of when I first read that book, and I thought about the dishes in the sink. It's a total thing for my wife. My wife's not high maintenance.
[00:12:56.690] - Chris
She doesn't complain and Nag me. And all that kind of stuff. But I just know from experience that if the kitchen is clean, tidy, no dishes in the sink counters are clear. My wife just feels better. like, she's got a different look on her face, different gleam in her eye. And so for me, every time now that I've made that connection, when I walk through the kitchen and I see dishes in the sink or on the counter, and I don't do anything... The book leadership and self-deception would say I'm betraying myself.
[00:13:24.660] - Chris
I'm committing the act of betraying myself because I know in my own head, nobody had to tell me it's not my wife scowling at me. It's just me internally. Like, I know if I took three minutes and did this thing, it'd be meaningful to my wife. And I love her. And so, therefore, I should do this good thing. I can and I should. Once I made that connection. Now, when I walk past those dishes, there's this marker in my brain.
[00:13:46.810] - Brandon
You can't unsee it
[00:13:47.920] - Chris
now unless you guys think I'm some Monk, that's just like, Mr Selfimprovement kindness all the time. Whatever. Whatever. Hippie, fufu, hippie. I don't know. I'm not. I do make the choice to walk past the dishes. And I did earlier that day. So we get to the moment of this podcast when I'm literally about to bring up my wife as an example, and me doing the dishes went, blah, blah, blah. I realized, oh, my gosh. I made dinner. I left things all over the place. All I wanted was to go sit on the back deck and i did.
[00:14:26.020] - Chris
sink full of dishes. And I just had this, oh, crap moment. And I literally I literally paused it on Spotify. I was like, hey, I got to go do something. And she's like, Well, are you coming back? I'm like, yeah, just a few minutes, because it did. It only took me, like, eight minutes to load the dishwasher and wipe the counter down. Right. But what was funny is when my buddy texted well our client, after our client texted me, after I finished cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen, I had texted back, and like, hey, have you finished the episode?
[00:14:59.670] - Chris
Because I don't think you heard that part yet. And he said, no, I'm only about 30 minutes in. And I said, okay, well, when you do, I've got a funny story for you. Listen, we're all the same, right? We all know these good things we ought to do, and you can apply that to any area of your life. There's good things that I know, that word of encouragement when I come home from work that I know I should say to my kids, like, pausing instead of going straight to the back deck and having a finger of whiskey or having a cigar, having a quiet time.
[00:15:25.610] - Chris
Right? Like, I have that inkling of... I should stop. I should connect with the kids see how people's days gone, right. We have these inklings all the time. And I remember back when I first read this book, I'm like, Man, integrity is a moving target. You know what I mean?
[00:15:40.660] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:15:40.930] - Chris
Just like how I open the show. We love to talk about integrity. And I think what I learned from that book and what I'm reminded of is we're choosing integrity every moment. Like a company only as full of integrity as how the people operated today
[00:15:58.660] - Brandon
last small decision.
[00:16:00.070] - Chris
Your last small decision is a reflection of your level of integrity you have. And I think that's true of us as people, as leaders. I mean, you don't have to be a business leader for this to resonate.
[00:16:09.550] - Brandon
Well, you got a sphere of influence that it all applies. Families, friends, circles, associations, groups doesn't matter, even as employees. An integrity piece is a personal journey, so it applies to anybody and everybody. All right.
[00:16:29.370] - Chris
Let's take a minute to recognize and thank our mid Resto Mastery sponsor, Accelerate Restoration Software. And I'm fully aware, by the way, that when I say those last two words, Restoration software that instantly creates heartburn for some of you out there. Right. Because we probably all fall into one of two camps when it comes to software. We've either cobbled together kind of a version of free website tools and spreadsheets just to make our business work, or we're in the camp where we've adopted one of these existing restoration platforms, one that has all the bells and whistles and supposedly does it all.
[00:17:07.840] - Chris
But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah.
[00:17:14.030] - Brandon
And that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's similar PL, right. It's intuitive, and it focuses on the most mission critical information. You guys, your team will actually use it.
[00:17:28.540] - Chris
Let's talk about sales. Right. After years of leading sales and marketing teams, the biggest trick is getting them to consistently update notes about their interactions with referral, partners and clients. And the essential piece there is, there's got to be a mobile app experience. And in our experience, the solutions that were previously out there were just too cumbersome and tricky to use.
[00:17:52.040] - Brandon
Yeah. Imagine, guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system. Do yourself a favor. Go check these guys out at Excel Restoration Software, com Mm, and check out the special offers they're providing to Mr listeners.
[00:18:11.830] - Chris
All right, let's talk about actionable insights owners, GMs, you can't be your business's expert on all things estimates. You might have been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry is always changing. And so the tools, if you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to exact at Matterport, how does that scale you're the bottleneck. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this is where actual insights comes in. They're a technical partner that can equips your team with the latest bleeding edge information and best practices and then update them with webinars and training resources when the game inevitably changes again.
[00:18:48.830] - Chris
For this reason, we recommend actual insights to all of our clients.
[00:18:51.960] - Brandon
Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to to AI and their team. First off is this consistently updated training. I mean, at the end of the day, these guys are the experts. They're out front all the time. They're constantly learning new trade secrets and ensuring that your teams got access to those things. A 1700 plus page database of exact emit templates. I don't know what else to say here. Other than don't reinvent the wheel. It's already available. Download it, copy it, use it.
[00:19:21.740] - Brandon
Bam database of commonly missed items. I think this is huge. So many of us can change the numbers by just moving the needle. A couple of points, and those commonly missed items can make all the difference in the world. So go check them out at value.Get insights.Org/FCG
[00:19:48.120] - Brandon
I'm totally resonate with what you're saying right now, but how do we do this, though? How do we look at this without it becoming another thing, just weighing us down? Because I know from personal experience this probably come up before, too, and certainly will again. There's this element of I do want to get better. Like, I naturally like the idea of identifying an area and being able to grow in it. It doesn't really bum me out, right? I like that pressure to a certain extent, but I also know I'm kind of high on the I don't know what the sense of responsibility, you know, measure, I guess.
[00:20:25.250] - Brandon
And so it can be easy for me, personally, to have yet something else piled on that I should be working on, or yet something else that I'm not as good as I hoped or whatever. Right? It just gets this weighty kind of unmotivating thing versus unawareness. And then based on this awareness, now I can make some different decisions, or I can be more Proactive. Right? Like even your example with the dishes. The cool thing about all of that is that there is this kind of awareness that's there. That's not so subconscious that it's a blind spot anymore for you.
[00:21:01.240] - Brandon
It's a thing. You're not always perfect at it, but it's a thing. It's relevant, it's upfront, you know, about it. You can talk about it, you can identify it, and you can make different decisions because you're aware of it, right? So how do We remain in that space as leaders, as individuals? But not necessarily, it be something else just weighting the crap out of you.
[00:21:21.280] - Chris
Yeah. I wish I'd figured all that out. I think...hahaha. Here's what I'm experiencing. Even in the midst of this conversation, I actually feel more optimistic about myself. I feel better about myself having this realization. I don't feel a burden of because, again, I've talked to others, too, that feel that it's just overwhelming cause there's all these areas we can improve. We're always falling forward in every single area of our life. But I think what I noticed is in that moment where I did have that awareness, thankfully, because of a podcast that I've recorded 48 hours before or whatever like that's the kind of person I want to be.
[00:22:04.680] - Chris
And so when I choose, because I didn't make the right choice the first time, but as soon as I became aware of it, I was able to do something about it. Now it's possible, right? My wife would have already cleaned up the kitchen, and that happens sometimes. I just walked through, I've got my head in the clouds, I'm doing whatever I'm doing, and my wife cleaned up the whole kitchen afterwards. Well, there's no way to really salvage that. Once it's clean, it's clean. But the fact I was able to recognize it and then go do it, it felt really good.
[00:22:30.710] - Chris
Yeah. I felt really good about myself.
[00:22:32.780] - Brandon
You know, you just use the term falling forward, which I know...
[00:22:36.050] - Chris
I think I got from you.
[00:22:37.340] - Brandon
We learned a lot. I didn't come up with it...I wish.
[00:22:40.150] - Brandon
I love that term, though. You know why I love it so much? It feels very accurate, right. It doesn't take away. It doesn't belittle the effect or the fact that we're making forward progression. But it also doesn't hype it up into this, something that's overly romanticized. Like it's something that it's not. We're legitimately ...Good people are legitimately falling forward, or the goal is to fall forward, or a lot of people use the term fail forward, like if we're making mistakes, if we're making modifications and we're tweaking the system, if you will, as we move forward, it's not going to be aggressive forward momentum all the time.
[00:23:23.370] - Brandon
It's going to be a lot of two steps forward, one step back. But you know what? You still are forward. I love that, especially in the text of this conversation, because that in and of itself feels like a pretty solid way to look at these things, to have that kind of perspective.
[00:23:39.420] - Chris
Do you know, the other thing that's been helpful for me is you and I I don't know somewhere about the two year Mark or so I think we we had a really close working relationship. It took us a couple years to really build trust with one another. Right. But once we have another point, I remember what this conversations happened a bunch of times now, but I remember the first time it happened was a real moment of truth for me. And this is what it was, you and I.
[00:24:01.720] - Chris
And I forget the context. But there was something that either you asked me to do or it was a group project or something. And somehow, after the fact, we were talking about how we thought it went whatever. And I don't remember if it was you or me that was really honest, but it was some version of you know what? Honestly, I feel like I phoned that in, like, there was a moment of honesty, where it's like, you know what? Yeah. I didn't give my best to that thing.
[00:24:26.510] - Brandon
I know what you're talking about. And it was you. You assessed yourself. You called yourself out.
[00:24:31.150] - Chris
Yeah. And I don't remember what the context was or when the time was. sense that conversation, we've had several of those honest moments. But at that point, I think I trusted you enough that I could just be honest. It kind of makes you wonder just how honest you and your people are on an even day. Do you really know what's going on in your business? That's the that's a whole nother topic. But we say we know because of what people are telling us, but we had a couple of those honest moments.
[00:24:56.280] - Chris
You know, I didn't get my best on that, and I don't feel good about that. Did you know that? The funny thing is, you could tell you could tell. And I think some of those moments just really gosh, like, rewired me because I realized that when I as a leader who I don't have many people, it's been a long time since I've had somebody I reported to. I mean, obviously, I reported to you. I've had bosses. But as a senior leader, you have a lot of autonomy.
[00:25:23.760] - Brandon
Oh, yeah.
[00:25:24.330] - Chris
You have a huge amount of responsibility. And with that comes a lot of autonomy and freedom and the ability to control your schedule and prioritize and all that kind of stuff. But when I had those moments with you and I was able to have those honest moments, I'm like, you know what? Everybody can tell when I'm phoning it in. just like, I can tell when my colleagues are phoning it.
[00:25:42.410] - Brandon
Right. Yeah.
[00:25:42.990] - Chris
So if we just all get honest with each other, we can get more in touch with that and work on that integrity piece because it really was is integrity issue, right? I can get away with turning in this level of work.
[00:25:53.390] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:25:54.000] - Chris
Because it's good enough. But did I actually give my best to it? Well, not always.
[00:25:59.450] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:25:59.980] - Chris
Not always. That's an integrity issue.
[00:26:02.770] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:26:03.400] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:26:03.980] - Brandon
It's a blurry line. So a couple of the terms, right. It's been integrity, discipline. It's a little bit difficult to determine chicken or the egg kind of deal or chicken or the egg with those things. But I think the physical practice is discipline or requires discipline. Like there's this mechanical commitment to something that has to take place, which in my mind, I almost would see falling under this definition of discipline. But then the integrity aspect of it, it's defining whether or not there's alignment between our everyday behaviors, attitudes and actions with who we want to be, where we want to go.
[00:26:40.090] - Chris
That because I think we have two kind of aspirational goals, like. We have this image we're trying to portray for others. I don't know if any of us ever gets away from this entirely. our ego really wants to be seen a certain way. And you put in the adjectives like, I'm a person of integrity. We have a way that we want to be known of. And then we have this internal thought track of who do I want to be? Like, when am I proud of myself?
[00:27:09.050] - Chris
And those two things might be a little bit different, but I feel like, I don't know. I don't know what the answer to this is. To go back to your earlier question of okay, so what now? There's part of this. It feels overwhelming where you could just always be self analyzing.
[00:27:24.430] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:27:24.820] - Chris
And then I can also hear some people hearing this and being like, oh, God, I suffer for a lot of my career under perfectionism. And this sounds like that. You've just got to be all right all the time, always on. And that's actually not what I'm talking about, either. No, because it's definitely not about perfectionism, but I think it's more just being honest with ourselves. It's noticing, and it's not coming down ourselves. It's like, it's just modifying the behavior. So, like, with the dishes, I noticed in that moment I was out of integrity.
[00:27:51.840] - Chris
It was fixable. In this case, if it hadn't been fixable, I would have just like to think, like, if my wife had already clean the kitchen, and then I was just aware of this integrity gap, like, what I'm trying to do and what I did. I'd like to think that I would just continue listening the episode and then pause it and actually owned it. Like, honey, I really do aspire to this, and I'm curious. Even better. I'm curious. Honey, how often do you experience me as prioritizing this or.
[00:28:17.380] - Brandon
Like, being an alignment? You mean?
[00:28:19.150] - Chris
Yeah. How often do you roll in the kitchen when I'm home? And it's a shambles. And, you know, I've been through the kitchen,
[00:28:25.950] - Brandon
You can see the signs.
[00:28:26.880] - Chris
I'm curious how I'm doing on this from your perspective, because I guarantee you, here, I'm talking about being a person of integrity and having these disciplines and all that. But you know what? I don't know what my number is right now, and my 50% is my batting average. 500. Yeah, I don't know. But anyway, I just I want to be that kind of person that when I say something is important to me, that I monitor that. I don't wait for somebody else to call out the fact I'm not doing that or call out my bad behavior.
[00:28:55.130] - Chris
Like, I want to call myself out. Does that make sense?
[00:28:58.650] - Brandon
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I'm gonna I don't know if I'm pushing back or what?
[00:29:03.380] - Chris
yeah push back.
[00:29:03.830] - Brandon
Maybe I'm being defensive. I don't know...
[00:29:05.280] - Chris
I'm feeling like I'm being a little bit, maybe I'm going down a rabbit hole.
[00:29:07.860] - Brandon
No, I think you're right on point. Here is something I think I wrestle with on this same idea, and that is I think we think that in order for us to have crossed that line, that it's just gonna someday just be natural. These are the things that will just always happen the right way, because we're so committed to having integrity and we're so disciplined. And I think the opportunity here for people is to understand that this stuff ain't sexy. Like this alignment that we're talking about or more often, doing the right thing than not.
[00:29:39.560] - Brandon
It really comes down to really lame, boring stuff. Like, put a reminder on your calendar, block out the time for that. Have a mentor or an accountability buddy. Talk to your spouse in such a way where you say, hey, here's the thing that I want to work on. Will you help me be accountable to doing this and be kind. Don't jump down my neck the first time I fail because this is hard for me, right? But none of that is that's not YouTube. That's not Ted talk crap, because it's boring little things that we do that help us actually execute on a more consistent basis to find that alignment between what are we doing right now and how does that marry up with what our vision of ourselves and where we want to go and how we want to be?
[00:30:28.460] - Brandon
And so I think maybe there's an opportunity here for people to just hear that this isn't second nature crap. And so if you're not doing it subconsciously, then you're a massive failure. If that's happening, there's a strong chance at the blind spot, and you're just not aware there's something you need to be working on. Right. And so I think that maybe dialing back to how do we do this without it just being this heavy weighty thing is let's just start by pick one or two things and then put some mechanical things in place to assist you in making that transition.
[00:30:59.940] - Brandon
Don't get all bent out of shape about it. Don't make this a life or death thing, because let's have fun. Let's make this something that we can enjoy doing. Being in change, being in transition, being a person that's growing as an individual. That's a lifetime journey.
[00:31:15.940] - Chris
Totally.
[00:31:16.560] - Brandon
And if everything's based on a sprint, or if we're not doing it naturally, or if we're not gifted at that thing from day one, then we scrap it or throw in the towel. That's pretty crappy.
[00:31:25.740] - Chris
And I think what I've noticed is the reward comes immediately. Like, on those days, like I was describing those days when I'm answering correctly, when I'm living in integrity, and I'm making these little choices. Maybe, not all of them. Yeah, I cut the corner... I take more time for lunch than I planned on. Whatever. We're never going to have the perfect day. But what I've noticed is when I am being thoughtful, when I am being thoughtful about honoring my own plans, my own commitments, it really has an energizing and stabilizing effect.
[00:32:01.490] - Chris
I feel less anxious at the end of the day. And I think one of the reasons for that is when I'm cutting corners, I know there's something left on the pile that I'm going to have to deal with.
[00:32:14.540] - Brandon
Yeah, you just pushed it down the street.
[00:32:16.620] - Chris
I just take that ball further down the street. I'm gonna have to go get it at some point. Right. And that's I think, where a lot of the stress comes as when I'm ditching these little commitments here and there. You're gonna ask me about that podcast, guest brief again. If I don't send it to you tonight, like I said it was, I'm gonna have to deal with the pain, the sting of you saying, hey, dude, I thought you said you were gonna get that done before you left the office on Friday.
[00:32:41.640] - Chris
And so if I had waited, then I had the whole mental gymnastics of coming up with an excuse where I don't sound like a total lame ass. And I'm probably gonna lie, and I'm gonna feel poorly about myself or lying to my business partner about something stupid that I should have taken 25 minutes to do. Right? Like, I have all these thoughts that I have to deal with.
[00:33:03.140] - Brandon
Dude,haha
[00:33:05.220] - Chris
that's where that anxiety and stress comes from. then I go home, and I want to sit on my back porch and just enjoy time with my wife, listening to a Spotify playlist.
[00:33:13.930] - Chris
And it's like,
[00:33:14.600] - Brandon
you can't.
[00:33:15.290] - Chris
But in the back, there's this thing tugging at the back of my shirt. You never followed through and sent that session recap to your client at 03:00. You could have just done it in 20 minutes right after. But instead, you walk to the coffee shop and just sluffed it off. You got all these things are like... i need to Do that now, Saturday morning, and it just never ends, right?
[00:33:35.390] - Brandon
And then it's completely hijacked your mind. So this whole relaxing thing that you were going to experience has gone. I've had the same thing happened to me often. Like, we were talking about this last weekend, certainly not brain surgery, but I had some yard work I had been putting off for a while, and we had a pretty interesting week. We were on the road, we did some client visits, and it was long days. We were pounding pavement, and I was wiped out. Man. I was really feeling my age.
[00:34:00.050] - Chris
We're not 25 anymore.
[00:34:01.490] - Brandon
Oh, gosh, it's kind of embarrassing. But it was the same thing. Like, Saturday morning, I woke up with this intentionality of getting XYZ done in the yard. And you know what? Honestly, man, I just gave up, so I'm not going to lie about it. The only thing I want to do is just sit on the couch and watch the movies. And it is true, though. Physically, I wasn't active. But the reality of my mind was really not resting because I was thinking about this thing, and then you start unpacking the whole, like, how many times have I told my wife I got to get that yard pieced done, and I was gonna do XYZ, and I've drove by it a million times, and it drives me bonkers every time I drive by it, and it's not done.
[00:34:37.850] - Brandon
So you're not relaxed. You're not really enjoying this freedom that you intentionally said no to something and created this moment. So, no, I'm with you. But again, I think the struggle for me on that is I'm really good looking backwards and going, oh, man, I was totally not relaxed, and I totally should have just sucked it up, and we got it done. I would enjoy the rest of my day more. So easy to say afterwords.
[00:34:59.280] - Chris
The tricky parts in the moment, there's no doubt. And I'll say it again. We're fellow travelers, everybody... like, this is just what's been on my mind is this issue of discipline. And for other fans of Jocko Willink , you and I listen to some of his stuff, be, discipline equals freedom. When I walk in that I'm always better.
[00:35:24.500] - Brandon
Absolutely.
[00:35:25.640] - Chris
I mean, I'm just like disciplines. It's like every time I layer in any kind of discipline into my life, my life gets better. My relationships get better. I have more fun. We have more rest.
[00:35:38.050] - Chris
The more disciplined I've been. Even just I've talked a little bit about going to the gym, so I like going to CrossFit gym. Just the discipline of knowing. Like I set a goal, I'm gonna work out four days a week, no matter what hell or high water. Even if I got to do work out in the hotel room because I'm not at CrossFit, it's four sweaty workouts a week. Making that discipline. I do it in the morning. And once it's done, like, I just feel more rested at night because I did my work of the day I worked my body.
[00:36:07.540] - Chris
I really don't have anything I need to be doing right now, and I can really rest. I can really rest. This reminds me the story. A story. I haven't told you the story. I don't think one of my insurance buddies, he was telling me about a weekend retreat he did with some other business buddies, business owners. One guy is a pastor or a priest or something. I think it's a priest a little bit different. Like, he's like a Monk priest, like, wow, I don't know.
[00:36:30.990] - Chris
Somebody write us and tell us what the difference is but I think he's like a priest with a white collar thingy. anyhow, they were all talking about sleep, because as we get older, right? It's harder sleep all you youngsters out there. This is something we struggle with as you get older. amongst all the other things. And they were talking about just how hard it is for them to sleep insomnia and all this stuff. And this one priest guy they've been friends with since childhood, he's like, you know, honestly, I lay my head down.
[00:36:56.880] - Chris
I'm out in 30 seconds every night, and all of them just looked at him wide eyed, like, basically, how the hell do you do that?
[00:37:04.690] - Brandon
How is that possible?
[00:37:06.190] - Chris
yeah,Priest boy, how does that work? You know, you're in the people business. How do you just go to sleep at night? Because we're all in the people business, and, you know, whatever. And he said a one sentence, answer to them. He said, "I have no regrets."
[00:37:20.050] - Brandon
Yeah, right now I'm trying to wrestle with that.
[00:37:23.970] - Chris
Think about think about that. Now, listen, I don't know. I don't know if that guy was just kind of being clever. I don't know how true that was, but I think there's a principle there. It's pretty interesting. And I think it ties in with what we're talking about. Right? Like when we're prioritizing being true to ourselves and having integrity. Being aligned with what we're saying to other people, about ourselves, what we're saying we value about our company, what we say this is the kind of husband I want to be, the kind of father I want to be.
[00:37:54.170] - Chris
And we're actually making these little choices throughout our day or week that are aligned with that. I think it's possible to get to the end of the day and not have regrets. That doesn't mean because to me, that's how I think about regrets.It's things left undone. It's like broken relationships. That's where regrets are. Right? So I've left a relationship in a broken state, or I've left this task undone that I said I was gonna do. And it's like, there's something off Kilter inside us. Now, I know there's people that just struggle with sleep, maybe a hormonal or there's other stuff, but that's not true for me.
[00:38:25.580] - Brandon
And that's not what we're talking.
[00:38:26.750] - Chris
And that's not what we're talking about.
[00:38:28.580] - Chris
So, yeah,
[00:38:30.950] - Brandon
dude, I got to tell you, there is some drive on me to want to continue to poke at that. But that last story actually is pretty being dang legit. And I don't know, we don't know the story, the back story behind that. But based on what we're talking about right now, that is serious, man. This idea of the more times you follow through, the more times I follow through with the things that I intended to when we get to the end of the day, how many less regrets do we have?
[00:39:02.130] - Brandon
And I think those less regrets, maybe not no regrets, but less regrets certainly changes the way that we're feeling about ourselves. It changes the weight the anxiety this can hang for me a little bit. I think I'm going to have to wrestle with that story a little bit.
[00:39:16.840] - Chris
I think the other part of that story is funny where our head goes sometimes on certain things kind of Spider web out. I think one of the optimistic or really positive things, because this obviously can go to a heavy place where it's like, man, I haven't been really conscious of this or mindful of this. But what's great is that in a moment, you can change gears big time. Like my example with the podcast. Okay. Now, of course, my motivation was, I don't wanna look disingenuous for, like, an idiot with my wife.
[00:39:43.750] - Chris
If she's gonna hear this, she's just gonna look at me funny, cause she walked through the kitchen to be like, she walked in the kitchen 15 minutes before that, and she knows it's a mess, right? So just the cognitive dissonance of that would have been uncomfortable. But I had an opportunity to fix it, turn it, and then it wasn't a regret. It wasn't in incongruency. It wasn't a moment of disintegrity. I fixed it. I saw it. I'm out of integrity. I need to get back in.
[00:40:08.450] - Chris
It also reminds I grew up in Church, going to Sunday school and all that kind of stuff. And it reminds me of I don't remember the principal. Exactly. But basically, if you're, like praying in Church and you remember that you sinned against somebody, like you did something bad, you're supposed to I think it's in scripture. Like, you're supposed to leave the altar or leave your prayer and go make things right with that person, then come back and talk to God.
[00:40:32.500] - Brandon
Oh, Gotcha
[00:40:33.760] - Chris
you know what I mean? you remember what I'm talking about? yeah. Yeah. Like, hey, we're having a spiritual moment. We're talking to God or whatever, and we realize, man, I really offended that person. I need to make that right. The scripture says literally, go now. Get up.
[00:40:48.150] - Chris
Go make it right with that person, then come back and do your prayers. It's kind of like that same thing. Once you're aware of it, then that's the moment of integrity. Now that I'm aware of it, am I gonna do something or not?
[00:41:01.490] - Chris
That's healthy
[00:41:02.900] - Brandon
Yeah, for sure.
[00:41:03.650] - Chris
I don't know. Hopefully I didn't lose people with that Church reference.
[00:41:08.330] - Brandon
No, that's dialed in, I like it. What do you think? Are you gonna...
[00:41:09.530] - Chris
Are you going to wrap this up? Why don't you do this?
[00:41:13.160] - Brandon
You think so?
[00:41:13.870] - Chris
Customary summary here. All right.
[00:41:15.710] - Brandon
I was actually looking for a summary vacation.
[00:41:18.530] - Chris
Well, you know, I'm happy to pipe in and just extend the podcast. If there's something I feel like should be...
[00:41:23.750] - Brandon
There's no way you'll let me get away. Okay.
[00:41:25.460] - Brandon
All right. So here's what I heard from you today. Kind of two principal ideas, but they're so symbiotic. They're so interconnects to this idea of discipline and integrity. Discipline being kind of defined as the actions, the behavior that we're taking. And then this idea of integrity being an alignment with where we want to go, who we want to be. Are we acting out on the things that we're saying or telling people? And then there's this idea of a we want to be in alignment. When we're not in alignment, there's this added weight that we almost intentionally put on ourselves.
[00:41:59.950] - Brandon
It's extra anxiety. It's extra stress.
[00:42:02.370] - Brandon
It's the...
[00:42:02.860] - Chris
things undone.
[00:42:04.090] - Brandon
The things undone. It's the mental gymnastics we go through. Like, how am I gonna address that? How I'm gonna make up for it? All the things. Right. And then there's kind of this idea, though, that that doesn't have to be a negative, like this principle, this idea, this awareness doesn't have to be a negative thing, and it doesn't have to be picture perfect. It's this idea of. Okay, as we become more aware of this as we set goals for ourselves, and we start actually trying to achieve those things or change certain types of standards or behaviors that we've had for ourselves, there's got to be this positive awareness that happens.
[00:42:33.330] - Brandon
This posture of saying, okay, I'm aware of this. I understand it now. What am I going to do with it? And then the best part, really, for me, is this idea that it could change tomorrow.
[00:42:41.440] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:42:42.040] - Brandon
Like, you make the mistake today. Okay, let's not hang ourselves. Let's go fix the situation. Let's hit reset on it. Let's make the different decision tomorrow. And the fact that we can literally do that every hour, every minute, every day to hit reset realign get back on course. We have that choice, and we can make that choice at any time, right? Yeah. And then the benefit of this is this idea of the more times in the day, the more times, the more elements of our life that we begin to align with what we want to experience with who we want to be.
[00:43:15.900] - Brandon
It's like the life's weight, the uncontrollable things become more manageable. The weight is a burden that it's easier for us to bear because we're not piling this other stuff on it.
[00:43:26.130] - Chris
Dude, that's good, man. Dude, your summaries here's. The risk. Summaries are so good. I know some people in the audience are like, okay, I could spend 40 minutes on Nordyke, or I can just hit the fast forward 15 seconds, like, 30 times, and then just get Brandon recap and then move on with my day.
[00:43:42.550] - Brandon
Hey, you know what? We recap really intentionally because some people need the recap. Like, I am that person. I have to have the recap.
[00:43:49.980] - Chris
All right, bro.
[00:43:50.760] - Brandon
Good one.
[00:43:51.190] - Chris
That's good. Later.
[00:43:54.270] - Brandon
All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of the MRM podcast.
[00:43:58.710] - Chris
And if you got something out of it, share it with a friend. Hit subscribe. Hit Follow. Leave us a five star Review. Thanks a lot.