[00:00:07.370] - Chris
Welcome back to the Head, Heart and Boots podcast. I'm Chris.
[00:00:10.830] - Brandon
And I'm Brandon, join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead.
[00:00:17.850] - Chris
I don't know what you think.
[00:00:19.220] - Brandon
It was kind of serious. Should we laugh, Amigo? How are you?
[00:00:27.620] - Chris
I'm good, man. What a whirlwind week.
[00:00:29.740] - Brandon
What day is it? I didn't want to go there. I honestly feel like we're just constantly on a roller coaster. We've talked about that before. It's like the ups and downs of standard Week are just wild downs, being like those peaks of stress. And what the heck factor? Anyways, it's fun. It's fun. It's stressful. It's fun.
[00:00:51.660] - Chris
You know what's funny about this topic that we were batting around is I'm pulling up my ideas, my little notebook of ideas, the black book, if you will. Yes, Apple Notes. It's really called ideas. And I have this longish note that relates back to this that I wrote like three or four days ago after a conversation with my wife. Anyway, so there's a lot of meat here. It's been occupying a lot of headspace. I made this comment before we got on of how I see myself assigning reality to my thoughts. And you were like, oh, dude, I know what you're talking about, right? This idea that thoughts come into my head without me even choosing them. Right. The thing about thoughts is our mind is constantly generating them. And it was Eckhart Tolley. So Eckhart Tolley wrote A New Earth and he wrote The Power of now. Fantastic books. A little woo, woo. You got to get through kind of the new age language. I think it's uncomfortable for some people, but the core premise is really built around our ego. Right. And how what our ego does and how our ego generates these thoughts, our minds have just evolved to where if you just hit pause and sit quietly, within a few seconds, your mind starts getting flooded with thoughts.
[00:02:08.300] - Chris
Some of them are stressful thoughts, and some of them are just wacky, repetitive thoughts about nonsense. But our tendency is to accept these thoughts as true. And I've just been realizing how quickly I get sucked into, particularly with marriage and with children right now, the stage of life. But when I think about it, I realize, wow, that is sort of a regular. It creates routine suffering for me.
[00:02:36.790] - Brandon
First of just the term routine suffering.
[00:02:39.610] - Chris
It sounds horrible, but people know what I mean, right? So anyway, here's the note that I put in here. And now I had story about Kara and marriage. Kara is my wife, but I don't remember what the story was. The context for this. It doesn't matter, though. I said it's okay to feel the emotion, the pain, the anger. Just don't make plans at the same time.
[00:03:01.930] - Brandon
That's really great advice, right? Yeah.
[00:03:05.700] - Chris
And listen, I'm going to be really transparent here about marriage. My wife and I have been married 20 years. 20 years next March.
[00:03:12.920] - Brandon
Yeah, it's huge.
[00:03:13.820] - Chris
20 years, March 22. I remembered it. I'm ready. I still have time to figure out something special. I think I could be alone in this, but I think anybody who's married more than a minute had serious thoughts about divorce.
[00:03:27.510] - Brandon
Sure. Yeah.
[00:03:28.710] - Chris
Or just the I mean, it's not fair.
[00:03:30.450] - Brandon
We complexities.
[00:03:31.630] - Chris
We don't like to talk about that out loud, especially because you and I come from pretty spiritual, religious background. It's like divorce is not ideal or frowned upon, whatever. But the reality that we live inside our head is you contend with that. I don't care how much you liked your spouse when you got married, how much you love them now. It's cute. Divorces. You get these thoughts coming out of a conversation with your spouse that just set you off. And these thoughts are revolving around your head and you start spinning out. You go down this dark path, you can find yourself starting to make action plans, like, boy, if this doesn't change or this doesn't get better, I don't know if I want that. And then what next? And what next? And you start spinning out on these things. And if you're not careful, right. It can really mess things up. It starts to affect your behavior towards that person. You pull back emotionally anyway. So I think anybody who's been married more than a minute, they understand what that's about.
[00:04:24.860] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:04:25.560] - Chris
They wouldn't necessarily ever say out loud, I'm thinking about getting divorced.
[00:04:28.420] - Brandon
But these are the thoughts.
[00:04:30.110] - Chris
Right. So I wrote this note. I was coming out of one of those experiences with my wife where we were just really at loggerheads, just really frustrated with each other. And as I was coming out of that, I realized, wow, I'm so glad I didn't stay in that place because then we were able to have a conversation and process through that stuff. And those thoughts left me.
[00:04:54.510] - Brandon
And inevitably, it wasn't what you thought.
[00:04:57.280] - Chris
I recognized in me, I have a very high capacity for emotion. I run hot like I'm a fiery spirit. These thoughts come to me and I start to get wrapped up in it. It's the same energy that causes me to be successful in business. I think this is fiery spirit. When I'm in something, I'm in it, and I can very easily get in it with these thoughts or even that orientation towards action.
[00:05:21.750] - Brandon
Right. I think kind of an old school half joke, half truth is this idea that with our partners, when they share maybe the strains or stresses or the experiences that they're having, our initial reaction is to fix it. We want to go in and start answering the problem, overcoming the problem. And I think the same thing happens. We just tend to be oriented towards action. And so it's like if you assign truth to these experiences and the thoughts in your mind, then we start heading down certain path of execution or of action. And inevitably, with that, we could be spending an enormous amount of time and energy overcoming or fighting an obstacle. It wasn't even a real obstacle. We could take all this action in the wrong direction because we just started assigning this truth to just thoughts or emotions, like those things that fire up in an instant. Dude, when you said that this morning, I was like, oh, my gosh, it is similar to the assigning your identity to certain things. It's the same idea almost, where we make something fact when it isn't yet. Perhaps. Right. It's just a thing that we're wrestling with.
[00:06:34.880] - Brandon
I hate even sometimes opening the pathways to some of these thoughts, because then it makes me reevaluate past experiences and some of them being pretty critical to the overall trajectory of my life has been on. I'm just thinking back to a certain relationship. I'm thinking back to certain professional environments where it's like, I know if I'm honest with myself that me assigning truth to a thought or an emotion or a perspective most certainly influenced me.
[00:07:04.940] - Chris
It caused you to take action that if I knew that, you know, wasn't the best course of action. Yeah.
[00:07:11.490] - Brandon
Or in cases where it's just in question, I don't know. And I'm not saying I would hit rewind or I'd do it differently, but I think that there is some power in stopping and thinking about that. That, man, I may have taken a course of action that was not necessarily built on real truth.
[00:07:30.020] - Chris
Right? So I wrote some more. I wrote so it's okay to feel the emotion, the pain, the anger, the whatever. Just don't make plans. Just let yourself feel the things. Like, I can feel upset and angry. I can feel frustrated with this aspect of my marriage or this conversation with my kids or whatever the thing is, or download employees. This is transferable to every relationship we have. Right. And even ourselves, because we can get in some really negative thought cycles about our own selves performance. Who am I not all these things. And then I said, we get some pretty wild and crazy stories whipped up in our minds in no time flat. We judge why the person said this or that or did this or that and instantly know what they meant, what their intention was of why they did this or that. Right. Which then drives us to the question of what do I need to do because of that action that was taken or that thing that they said, what do I need to do? And we just start making plans of how we're going to respond to that person, what we need to do, what boundaries we got to set, what discipline maybe is called for in that situation.
[00:08:37.730] - Chris
All of this happened in the course of it started in the course of 60 seconds. We're reacting to a thing and then these stories just start forming and instead I wrote what would happen if we just paused and felt the emotion we were having and then consider the rest later.
[00:08:54.530] - Brandon
Let it pass almost for a moment.
[00:08:56.550] - Chris
Yeah. I was asking myself, do I feel like sometimes I'm a bit rash with my initial responses? And then I answered myself, I know I am right? So I'm just processing through this and this again, when I wrote this, I'm coming out of a difficult conversation with my wife and I'm realizing all these things. But, man, I just know this is a cycle. It's a cycle for me. I'm becoming more aware of it. But I think, you know, what I'm doing in that moment is I don't think there's any other way to say this. But when I assign reality to my thoughts like that and I start spinning out the other thing that's going on is the only person I can really see in the equation is me.
[00:09:35.860]
Yeah.
[00:09:36.790] - Chris
If I'm really honest with myself, like, when I'm going off on these thoughts and lost in my head, I can only see me in that moment and how this is affecting me and how is this going to hurt me or thwart my goals or plans or desires or whatever? Again, it doesn't matter if it's a marriage context or a work or business or anything else.
[00:09:58.580] - Brandon
Right.
[00:09:58.830] - Chris
It's like when I get lost in the thoughts, I'm captive inside myself and I can't see others as people that have their own thoughts that are screwing with their head.
[00:10:07.800] - Brandon
Right.
[00:10:08.460] - Chris
Like, I can be so quick to judge why my wife said this or didn't say this or did that or didn't do this. And in that moment, I'm so lost in how that affects me. I can't even see her.
[00:10:20.960] - Brandon
Yeah, right.
[00:10:21.850] - Chris
As like she may have her own shit that's going through her head, messing with her response and her attitude towards me. It's impossible for me to value that, though, because I'm so lost in what this means.
[00:10:33.630] - Brandon
Right.
[00:10:34.460] - Chris
You know what I mean?
[00:10:35.180] - Brandon
Yeah. No, it's funny that you say that. A conversation I was having actually with my kids not that long ago. I have adult kids, my 21 and 20. And we were just talking about maturity and what signs of maturity were and are. And we were just having this conversation back and forth around the idea that at relatively wide range of ages, we might have some bills, we might have some costs that we're responsible for. We may have these things that we're doing that mimic or look like stuff that only adults do. But just because we began to do those things, it doesn't mean that we're maturing. Right. And so what we talked about is we were trying to kind of create some definition around what does maturity actually look like? Hang with me. It's kind of come back. And this idea was maturity is almost a measurement of when we begin to view our interaction with the rest of the world for the sake of the other person. And maybe let me just unpack that idea a little bit often. And it's really easy to see in our kids. Right. Even though we're doing it. But it's easy for me as a third party to view this in my kids, where my kids are very good at seeing themselves in the world.
[00:11:49.310] - Brandon
But it's always or it tends to be from the perspective of me acting this way affects this room. How does that affect me? Not how does it affect the other person for the sake of the other person. And so we are just trying to come to an agreement on maturity is those people that you see their awareness, how they behave, how they interact with their sphere of influence is consistently from the perspective of how is this impacting that person? Right. So anyways, what you're talking about is actually a layer on that. Like it's this idea that it almost makes us turn back to adolescence problem solving when we can only see the situation from the perspective of my perspective and how it affects me. Right. So we go backwards in our maturity if we agree on the definition. When we get caught up in assigning that truth that way, it literally makes us regress in our ability to have relationship.
[00:12:46.310] - Chris
It's interesting this goes back we've talked about this before, but I think it's so timeless and it's so helpful for me. The Arbinger Institute, the leadership and self deception thing of being in the box, where they talk about when we're in the box, we're consumed with me now in the moment. We don't ever see it that way because our ego doesn't like to take on that. We're being selfish or anything like that. Right. In the box. It's like we see everybody else as an object to overcome, a thing to push aside, to get where we're going, a vehicle by which we can get to what we want. And when we step out of the box, we see other people as humans who are having the same kinds of thoughts we are.
[00:13:28.920]
Yeah.
[00:13:29.480] - Chris
And I think this is one of the areas where I've really struggled at times in my career with leadership, because I think as leaders, we already tend to be very achievement focused and objective focused. It's easy to get lost in that and to get off on these tangents in our head about an employee, about a business partner, even about a client or a wouldbe client, and just to spin out and stop seeing others as people that have similar hopes, dreams, fears, and anxieties like us and instead just see them as a box we need to check or an obstacle we need to overcome. And boy, things go downhill real fast when we get in that mode. And I think often times we don't even realize we get that mode because I think it's so normative like all of us have these stories in our head.
[00:14:13.830]
Yeah.
[00:14:16.370] - Chris
Yeah. I wrote down as we were talking, I said I assign reality to my thoughts and it effs me up every time, almost every day. Yeah, right. As opposed to questioning our thoughts, which is what Eckhart Tolley would say. And again, I realized this is the headhart and Boots podcast. We're in the construction industry. We're in the nuts and bolts. We're in a concrete business. We do things. We're very practical. And so sometimes this stuff feels really like navel gazing, kind of woo woo. But I think the older I get, the more I realize it's these head games that make the difference between people that are really building something they're proud of, they're happy in the process. The happiness is not something out there in front of them, but they're able to sort of they're happy now. It has to do with these head games.
[00:15:03.650] - Brandon
It's just their ability to adapt and overcome. You and I were talking this morning a little bit about I just got done listening to one of I'm going to murder his last name.
[00:15:14.100] - Chris
Tim Beloupatin bar sold it for 2 billion big money.
[00:15:21.600] - Brandon
And then he's gone on to be a real key influencer. Anyways, his guest was Tony Robbins. And Tony Robbins is one of those names, I think, in kind of the self leadership, self growth type environment. He's kind of the guy. Right. Probably on Mass. He was talking about just ungodly numbers of people participating in online webinars. We're talking about almost a million people participating. He's got to reach out to Zoom founders and leadership and have them modify their system to meet his need of this particular program he's putting on crazy. But what just kind of struck me is Tony is very diligent about the way that he is probably oversimplification, but the way he serves is his goal is to change your perspective. His work that he does is he wants you to realize that a lot of the things that you've been telling yourself or that you've bought into about your perspective on yourself, your skills, your capabilities, they're just what you're talking about. We've assigned truth to a thought that's all the more it was. And then you watched that live out in our lives. And so one of the things that struck me is that I was listening to these obstacles, ungodly obstacles that he overcame.
[00:16:34.410] - Brandon
Elon Musk is another person that he's done more for space science in a ten years than we have since the 60s. Right. And it's because he's like this. He's not limited by assigning truth, I think, sometimes to these thoughts or feelings. Right. Anyway, one of the things that struck me personally is how does this affect me as a business owner? How does this affect me and the level of effort that I give our business, the sales, the growth, the different mechanisms to keep it healthy? And I realized how short I've sold myself because of assigning truth to a thought. Here's a pretty simple example. How many of us have a business that's virtually looked about the same for the last two to three years? Same problems, same frustrations. Maybe their colors are a little bit different, but really, at the end of the day, it's the same shit. Different day.
[00:17:29.160]
Right?
[00:17:29.520] - Brandon
Where does that saying come from? And what I've realized is how often that is a byproduct of a business owner that is assigned truth to a thought, to a limitation, and they've bought it, and it may be the farthest thing from the truth. Half of what you and I do is just redirecting people's thoughts on what is possible. And I just literally going through my mind, the Rolodex of people in our sphere of influence, people where they've had great successes, and then there's, like the same challenge that just sticks around. They can't overcome it. And I realize how much of that is probably just in their mind. It's like, how do you communicate to someone that the thing that they've accepted or the level at which they've stopped pushing their business or whatever the case may be? It's like, man, if you could just hear a voice that told you that's completely bullshit. It's not even real. Then what happened throughout the next twelve months if they got freed from that? And, dude, I've got names in my mind right now to include my own, right? Where I'm like, dude, what if this year, right?
[00:18:37.830] - Chris
All right, let's take a minute to recognize and thank our MIT 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. But we can't get our team to consistently adopt it and input information to it. Yeah.
[00:19:22.990] - Brandon
And that's really where Accelerate has honed their focus. They've created a system that's simple, right? It's intuitive and it focuses on the most mission critical information, ie, guys, your team will actually use it.
[00:19:37.640] - 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. Yeah.
[00:20:01.490] - Brandon
Imagine, guys, how your business would change if your entire team was actually consistently using the system.
[00:20:08.740] - Chris
Do yourself a favor.
[00:20:10.030] - Brandon
Go check these guys [email protected] MRM. And check out the special offers they're providing to MRM. Listeners.
[00:20:20.910] - Chris
All right, let's talk about Actionable Insights owners. Gms you can't be your business's expert on all things estimated you might have been three years ago when you're writing sheets in the field, but the industry is always changing and so are the tools. If you're the smartest person in the room when it comes to Xactimate 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 equip 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. For this reason, we recommend actual Insights to all of our clients.
[00:21:01.090]
Yeah, three of the kind of big things that stuck out to me when being introduced to AI and their team.
[00:21:07.280] - Brandon
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 team's got access to those things. A 3700 plus page database of exact amount 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. 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.
[00:21:47.190] - Chris
Gitinsights.org FCG so my wife introduced me to this author probably three years ago. Byron Katie and I've talked about her before.
[00:22:00.710] - Brandon
Yeah.
[00:22:01.400] - Chris
So Byron Katie wrote this book called Loving. What is she is a very fascinating figure. And her story is very interesting, a little bit weird, very interesting, and also just common to all of us. We're talking about this story in our head, right. That we form. She developed this response to that called inquiry. That's what she's called doing the work is what she says, what she advocates for in her book and kind of her coaching practice is to essentially question the thoughts that come into our head. And she has these four questions. I don't know if I've ever talked about this in the podcast or not, and I don't even know that I'm going to remember all the questions.
[00:22:37.260]
Right.
[00:22:37.610] - Chris
But there's a couple that really stick out to me that I found useful. But the first thing that she asks her counseling recipients, this is kind of her mode of counseling is they will share that stressful or negative thought that's been rolling around in their head about a person, about a situation, a relationship, whatever. And the very first question of inquiry is, is it true? Is this thought actually true? And then, of course, when we're in the heat of the moment. It feels incredibly true. And that's why we think it's real. And so she follows it with the second question of can you absolutely know that it's true? Because a lot of times when we have a stressful or negative thought come in about an employee, a business partner, spouse, a boyfriend, girlfriend, a kid or whatever, or just our general circumstances, we make a lot of assumptions to support that it's true.
[00:23:25.960]
Right.
[00:23:26.330] - Chris
And so when you ask that second question of can I absolutely know that this thing I am thinking about, this person's situation is true. And that starts to break down the thought. And it's like, well, no, there's no way for me to get inside their head and know that's what they were thinking or motivated by. It starts to break down almost immediately for me. And so I've started to get in the habit of that is just ask you, I start to feel frustrated and feel this thought that I've been Molling over in my head and feeling negative about it. If I pause long enough and say, you know what? Is this actually true? Like, did Brandon really mean to say it to me that way? Was he saying it because of X, Y, and Z? Is that why he made that comment that I'm really frustrated about or whatever? And the moment I ask myself that question, it starts to break down. And it's like, you know what Brandon and I are? We've worked together a long time. I don't think that was his primary motivator. I'm still uncomfortable with this thought I'm having. But then it starts to break down.
[00:24:24.840] - Chris
It starts to loosen up. And I'm like, no, I know he didn't mean to do that right? Or say that or he didn't mean it that way. And then after a while, it just dissipates.
[00:24:35.620] - Brandon
It reminds me of, you know, when you get a freaking knot, think about a shoelace knot. It's like your first instinct pull and pick at it, and then it just gets worse and worse. But then when you just kind of slow down, you just kind of push it back towards each other. You work it right, it gets loose, and then you can untie it. I'm almost envisioning what you're talking about happening as your mind just pauses for a second. Is it true?
[00:25:01.070] - Chris
Yeah, it's so good. Okay. And then there's this other question in the inquiry. So if that doesn't work, usually that's enough for me. She actually has these worksheets that she you can print them out for free on her website. They're called Judge your Neighbor Worksheets. Oh, Gee, this is really funny. Yeah, it sounds really weird. But literally she encourages you to write down Judge your neighbor, the person that you're having these negative stressful thoughts, like write down verbatim what the thought is in your head. My spouse is a terrible spouse. They do such a poor job of taking care of me. Just write down what the literal thoughts are that are coming in your mind and plugging with for this employee. They're so irresponsible. They don't take whatever the thing is. Even just the act of sometimes saying the thought out loud because you're subconsciously processing this shit most of the time. Right. It's just like these thoughts are tumbling around in your head in the midst of all the other stuff you're doing in the day.
[00:25:52.640]
Right.
[00:25:52.820] - Chris
So I'm not saying that all of us consciously think about these things obsessively, but I think everybody knows what I'm talking about, right?
[00:25:59.510]
Yeah.
[00:25:59.960] - Chris
And when you just pause a moment, you say, wow, part of me is just really wrapped around the axle on this situation or this person. This conversation, just the act of noticing it starts to make it dissipate. But if that doesn't work, she has another question and she says, right now, who would I be in this moment without that thought? Like, if I wasn't thinking this thing about my spouse or my employee or my business partner or my peer, who would I be in this moment if I wasn't thinking that thought? That's a really powerful consideration because I have all these negative emotions, anger, frustration or potentially embarrassment or shame or whatever it is that I'm contending with. Who would I be if I didn't have those things going on inside me? Well, I'd be calm, I'd be collected. I'd be more discerning. I'd probably have better critical thinking. I would be less stressed. I would feel more accepting or loving toward that person. Right. All these things. So it's just an interesting mental exercise all at this point. So I was listening to another I know this is kind of a circuitous path here that we're taking.
[00:27:10.920] - Brandon
But what path are we taking?
[00:27:12.830] - Chris
Okay. All right. Circuitous.
[00:27:14.970] - Brandon
Wow. Great job, Mr. Scrabble.
[00:27:17.870] - Chris
But you know what? I'm just going to own this. I was always one of the best spellers growing up. I had a good vocabulary. I guess I'd read a lot when I was a kid.
[00:27:25.510] - Brandon
Yeah, well played on that.
[00:27:26.440] - Chris
Anyway. All right, whatever. So we're taking the circuitous path. I think it's the first time for me.
[00:27:33.250] - Brandon
I'm glad you don't know.
[00:27:34.090] - Chris
I'm glad you like that. I have said it for you.
[00:27:38.010] - Brandon
Really resonate with me. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
[00:27:44.190] - Chris
We all have different roles. So I'm listening to this Knowledge Project podcast, and he had Mark Andreessen. So Mark Andreessen is I think he's a managing partner of Andreessen Horowitz, which is one of the most successful, prolific venture capital firms in Silicon Valley of all time. They have an office in New York, and they have an office. Blah, blah, blah. Ben Horowitz's partner. Also very fascinating. But I'm listening to Marketing and recent talk. And this is a guy who's, I mean, he was an investor in Google. They're an investor in all of the big brands that we see today over the last 20 years, Andreessen Horowitz has probably had an investment round in. When I listened to how this guy talks, there's a thoughtful, kind of dispassionate tone to his voice where he's able to really hear him talk, even about political matters. And just like the current events of the day and the things that are affecting his businesses and his investments and what's happening in the business world, you can just tell he doesn't identify with the challenges or anything. He's able to just look really clearly. And it's almost like he can argue both sides of a thing.
[00:28:52.660] - Chris
Like, Lex Friedman is another podcast that I really love to listen to. And these guys are so they're so nerdy and they're so smart, but he talks about being able to steal, man. Any argument like to be able to look at both sides and argue for both sides of a situation. And I see that in a lot of leaders I admire it's valuable to them to be able to really look at both sides of a situation with understanding. And I see that a lot of the leaders I admire where they're just they're dispassionate in that way. It doesn't mean they're not passionate about things. Yeah, but when it comes to conflict or problems or challenges, they're able to really dispassionately, step back, get out of their head and look at both sides, start thinking about, honestly, honestly say, okay, what's happening here? What are people feeling on both sides of this? What's impacting this interaction, this relationship, and then thoughtfully move forward? And I'm like, man, I want to be more of that. There's something very attractive to me when I listen to a guy like Mark Andreessen and frankly, Shane Parrish, who runs that it's one of the things I'm attracted with him is he's dispassionate in the way that he's always a learner.
[00:30:05.970] - Brandon
Yeah, sure. Well, and I think what you're hitting on is there's an opportunity for us to experience a really limited tool set for problem solving when we're just subconsciously being led through that. Right. Like, what you're talking about. I'm even thinking about what are some of the thoughts that we're all having right now that we've collectively assigned truth to? This might rub some the wrong way, but let's think about recruitment. How many of us right now are repeating the same exact phrase verbatim that everyone else is saying to include us? I'm not separating myself from this group, so we're all using the same language and we've assigned truth to it. Yet we've seen and had conversations with people that do not agree with what we're saying. Like, we know businesses right now that recruitment is not even a problem on their radar.
[00:30:58.750]
Yeah.
[00:30:59.290] - Brandon
Now are we saying that collectively nothing has changed about the recruiting and hiring environment? Absolutely not. But see, here's the difference with this. I'm just trying to even use some of our own experiences with this. If I assign truth to my first thought, my gut reaction to hiring right now for key staff at the top level, I'm buying the same message. And the message is you can't find good people right now.
[00:31:24.080] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:31:24.710] - Brandon
Okay. Well, I'm just going to stop trying.
[00:31:26.150] - Chris
People don't like to work hard anymore.
[00:31:27.630] - Brandon
And people don't like to work hard anymore. No one wants to do anything within the trades. I've said all this. I've said all of it within the last 40 years.
[00:31:34.600] - Chris
Nobody's coming into the trades anymore. We have this big problem.
[00:31:37.020] - Brandon
We have this big problem. Now, are there elements of that story that are factual? Yes, for the most part. But look what happens to our problem solving capacity. And most of this is probably happening on a subconscious level. As soon as I make the statement or assign truth to that thought, it's impossible to hire people right now. Then what effort are you and your brain putting forth to solve the fucking problem? None.
[00:32:05.670] - Chris
Well, even worse than we talked about. When you're feeling these things because they're real feelings.
[00:32:09.390] - Brandon
Right.
[00:32:09.670] - Chris
We get nervous about it, but it is harder than it used to be. Blah, blah, blah. When we're in that we start to make plans.
[00:32:16.210] - Brandon
There we go.
[00:32:16.860] - Chris
Make the wrong plan.
[00:32:17.870] - Brandon
Make the wrong plan. And some of those plans look like kind of giving up. Whereas I'm watching going back to that Tony Robbins comment, one of the things that was blowing me away by what he was talking about were these unbelievable obstacles that they had to overcome. Well, if he assigned truth to every thought that he had, it would have been impossible or something would have taken nine months. Instead they turned it out. Nine weeks, like what people can accomplish. And this is going back to what you're talking about with key leaders. Most of the time, these leaders have changed the environment that they're operating in because they don't assign truth to a thought. And they let that truth breathe, or they let that thought breathe a little bit and they ask questions, they don't attach their identity to it. Next thing you know, when you look at the toolkit that they have available to solve problems, it's huge. Whereas you've already limited to either one choice or no choice by us assigning this cold truth to a thought.
[00:33:17.620] - Chris
Right.
[00:33:18.280] - Brandon
Very interesting.
[00:33:19.060] - Chris
It's very interesting. And look at our ancestors, right. There are always no matter the circumstances, world wars, famines, disease. There's still winners. There's still people that figure it out. You think about how Rockefeller built all of his wealth in the crash. He made different choices. He responded differently to the situation. And of course, there's always advantages that the winners have. But usually there was a different mindset, a different response. It was looking. It was choosing to look at the circumstances differently that allowed them to derive different outcomes. When everybody else was languishing in the reality, they chose to. Again, this isn't a Woohoo deal where it's like manifesting. We're just going to say what we want.
[00:34:11.660] - Brandon
Right.
[00:34:12.100] - Chris
And if we just say it enough, we're going to create this different reality.
[00:34:15.580] - Brandon
Right.
[00:34:16.140] - Chris
And I'm not even saying that maybe some of that psychology is wrong, but that's not really what we're talking about. I think we're really talking about is just taking a moment, creating some distance between these stressful, negative thoughts we have and just giving a little bit of pause to consider them oftentimes is enough to gain perspective and to see the other option. Yeah. It's like, okay, who would I be in this moment without this thought? Well, I wouldn't be stressed out. Okay, well, then what's the value of me being stressed out about this? And you start to break down the thought and you're like, okay, all right. There's probably some other things I can do here. I have maybe more control than I'm letting on. I have more agency in this situation than I was previously thinking. I was in more of a victim state of these things are happening to me. These employees are doing this thing to my business. These business partners are treating me in a way that I don't like. And you move away from those thoughts and you're like, okay, right. I have control of myself. What do I have control over and what actions, what options do I actually have?
[00:35:21.710] - Chris
And you discover I've got other options of how I'm going to respond to this.
[00:35:25.310] - Brandon
I love it. I think in a lot of ways it's funny, like some of these conversation topics are themes, and the themes tend to kind of interconnect with one another. I remember years and years ago, we really kind of started adopting the use of and training with this Qbq, asked the right question, taking ownership. And what was really interesting about that is just this. I think it's very similar in lines of the things that we're talking about right now where it's just this idea of keeping more options available to you and your choice making when you approach something from the right perspective, from the right direction, and how as soon as we buy into these very limiting thoughts. And again, like you said, there is truth in these. There are facts that you're dealing with. It's just not allowing those facts to overlay the whole conversation or the whole obstacle. And a big part of that whole Qbq and taking ownership for yourself is approaching things from that perspective of I can talk about the facts of the situation, but I'm going to stay away from this limiting victim mentality that removes my choice making capacity, that removes my ability to address the problem, to affect change in it.
[00:36:35.200] - Brandon
Because as soon as we show up already defeated. And I'm not saying this is the only thoughts that people have, but honestly, the downside is predominantly driven by these limiting thoughts. That's the same idea, though. If you take all the tools out of the toolkit. And what are you left with? No options, right?
[00:36:52.240] - Chris
Yeah. You're left with anger, command, Control, like Domineering. I mean, it's like we have other tools in the tool set. It's just that there's a whole different set of consequences. Right. That those things bring.
[00:37:03.890] - Brandon
Yeah, no, it's a good one, man. It's an interesting topic. It's funny, too, because I think these are the kinds of discussions that I know for me need to hear this stuff over and over. Right. Because it's like we were talking about these patterns that happens. Like we'll have a thought or an exchange or have an interaction with somebody that brings up some point or key topic or whatever. And then it feels like for the next two, three, four days, there's just all this repeating content that comes at you or the experience. God knows that might be Google driven anyways. But what I like about that is that this is one of those things where it's first changing me. Like hearing that Tony Robbins thing made me just us relook at our business. Like, what are we going to tackle this year? What limiting thoughts have we adopted? What truth have we assigned to some of the things that we've considered? And how is that slowing us down and or speeding us up? And there's like this burst of energy I get of, okay, F that like, okay, I'm going to retract some of these truths that I've assigned to it.
[00:38:04.700] - Brandon
I'm going to think about it openly. You and I are going to have a dialogue, right? And all of a sudden we're going to realize there's these new tools in our toolkit to solve problems with and how exciting that is. But I also know, inevitably, 90 days, 120 days, I'm going to be back in that zone a little bit, and then I'm going to need that reawakening again to get the fuel back.
[00:38:24.520] - Chris
Yeah, it's a discipline. It's discipline in our minds. I see it. Who knows? I don't know, Mark Andreessen, outside of this, I don't know Shane Parish, and we don't know Elon and stuff like what their personal lives look like. But it seems that there's a pattern that you can get to a place where you've developed that discipline enough to where that's your default response. So I think that's what I want. I want it to be more of my instinct to question my thoughts. And I'm not quite there. I'm not there, but I'm becoming more aware and it feels good. I just feel like I'm in a healthier season of life as I'm starting to think of this stuff and notice it quickly versus it languishing and kind of spinning out on some of these negative thoughts or themes or stories in my head. I'm able to snap out of it a little sooner.
[00:39:17.500]
Right.
[00:39:17.960] - Chris
When I'm in that discipline. Yeah, I agree. Same thing I've noticed with my wife and I. It's been really great because whereas something used to kind of percolate negatively in our relationship for a week in these kind of week long cycles. And then we have a good talk, and then we get through it, and then we kind of dip back into that cycle. With both my wife and I adopting more of this discipline. Now it's down to like, we'll have a bad day, maybe a couple of days, and then we'll get through it and we'll talk through it. We'll clear the table. These thoughts that we've both been having.
[00:39:48.190] - Brandon
Right.
[00:39:48.730] - Chris
So it happens faster, and it's like, okay, there's more health there.
[00:39:53.370] - Brandon
I think a big part of this. And it's probably true for a lot of the things that you and I chat about or wrestle with is that so much of so first off, it's kind of like you have to be comfortable with the fact that even as we're developing and growing as individuals, there's going to be these cycles, there's going to be times where we just kind of slip back into old patterns or it's like that discipline weeds for whatever reason. And this is why I think it's so critical for us to be better at surrounding ourselves with the right kind of sphere is because there's going to be it's kind of like my wife and I are rarely firing on all cylinders at the same time, right. Normally, if I'm having a rough week, thankfully, a lot of times my wife has really got some stuff handled, and maybe vice versa, business wise. You and I have talked about this very openly before. It's not very often I would say that you and I both are like, just all cylinders are fired up and we are just grinding away. There's this give and take where it's like because of scenarios, family life, the things you might be down a cylinder or two, but I'm strong that week and vice versa.
[00:41:01.130] - Brandon
And there's something really powerful about that sense of community. And I think by us saying, hey, it's inevitable. As we try to work through some of these things, add new tools to the toolkit, we are going to be having moments of slipping or cylinder not firing. And then what does it look like for me to have friends, business partners, peers that are conscious of this stuff, that are thinking about it, that are trying to engineer their life a little bit more appropriately, and then can they be there for me and vice versa when inevitably I slip back in somebody just to wake you up and say, like, bro, stop being a victim, like, pull your head out of your ass.
[00:41:36.650] - Chris
Yeah.
[00:41:36.960] - Brandon
It's like, okay, yeah, I needed that. All right, here we go again, right?
[00:41:40.240] - Chris
Yeah. So I think we all have these negative and stressful thoughts, and I think what we're suggesting from our own experiences, it's worth taking an inventory of that and saying, okay, is this something that happens for me, too. I'm pretty sure it does. So we have these universal negative and stressful thoughts. They feel very real, Whether it's our marriage or a business or anything else. And we talked about the value of Byron Katie questioning those thoughts. I think that's the habit that's the discipline is saying, wow, part of me is really spinning out on that situation, that conversation I had with my employee or with my spouse or my business partner or whatever, what's that about? And just pause and take a look at that story in our head that's spinning around, considering like Byron Katie suggests, who would I be in this moment? What kind of business owner, what kind of leader, manager, mentor, husband, father, friend, golfer, whatever. If I didn't have this thought rattling around in my head, who would I be? What would I be bringing to this moment If I wasn't spinning out on this thought? And then I guess the way we ended Is just having some Grace Or just some patience with yourself, because this is a discipline and it takes a while to cultivate a new discipline.
[00:42:53.940] - Chris
And this is probably one of those life disciplines that we're never going to fully arrive Because we're always going to have this ego that's tugging at our sleeve, that wants attention, wants self pleasure, wants what we want. But I think over time, it's possible for that to become more normal, to not be so reactive and to be more like Mark Andreessen, who's dispassionate and able to look clearly at both sides and then make decisions. I think all of us, certainly any business people, we all want to make better decisions, be more decisive, and create more legacy with our leadership than toxic residue, right?
[00:43:28.560] - Brandon
That's right.
[00:43:29.500] - Chris
So there we go.
[00:43:30.530] - Brandon
Yeah. I love it, man. This probably top ten in terms of leadership skillset Would probably be this. This is a pillar thought pattern that's worth investing energy in.
[00:43:39.470] - Chris
And in my experience, over the last maybe five years as you and I've been really pressing into this stuff, It creates the most happiness.
[00:43:46.250] - Brandon
Yeah, I agree.
[00:43:47.020] - Chris
Joy, the most joy and really does move the needle in terms of reducing stress, Which I know that's the thing for all of us. Oh, God. Yeah.
[00:43:56.650] - Brandon
All right, brother.
[00:43:57.300] - Chris
Okay. Totally. Next time. All right, everybody.
[00:44:01.500] - Brandon
Thanks for joining us for another episode of head, heart and boot.
[00:44:04.930] - Chris
And if you're enjoying the show but you love this episode, please hit follow. Only known to subscribe. Write us through review or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn. Share it via text. Whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.