Ep 73 - "It Is More Powerful To Be FOR Something Than AGAINST Anything"

0:07 Welcome back to the Head, Heart, and Boots podcast. I'm Chris. And I'm Brennan. Join us as we wrestle with what it takes to transform ourselves and the businesses we lead. Man, I love this industry. Brother, how are you? I'll be honest. I could say awesome, man. Yeah, it's all good. There's been a bit of a cycle today. I've had a bit of a cycle. I've had a bit of a cycle. Yeah. Ask me. I'll ask you later. How are you now? I'm feeling better. I'm better than I was four hours ago. We had to do a little bit of a walk, get our shit together.

0:49 A little coffee walk that was necessary. Some outdoor therapy. Sometimes you just got to hit reboot on the old mind before you continue to run your head into a brick wall. That's true. That is life. That's how somebody who's listening cares. Exactly. Let's move on. I have something interesting. It's like, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All right. Hey, dude. So I've got a topic for us. Oh, okay. So my wife. Okay, we're going to start there. That's interesting. Wow, that's the topic. How's your wife going to feel about this? My wife is our topic for the show. So my wife, a long time ago, and I'm not 100% where she heard it the first time or whatever the case may be, but she just has kind of repeatedly communicated to people the value in being for something rather than against something.

1:36 Okay. And it's interesting, the last, I don't know, just kind of series of weeks, you and I have been traveling quite a bit. So I've been taking in a few more podcasts than usual. And there's just, honestly, there's been a bit of a repeated rhythm to kind of this concept. It wasn't real specific. It didn't really get into it, but more like, well, one of your favorite words that you like to introduce in sometimes the most awkward locations as possible is love. You like to bring love into our industry speak, and not everybody's prepared for that. But that's kind of what a lot of these podcasts were referencing was this idea of love in the workplace, in professional relationships, and not love as associated with sexual activity, but just this kind of valuing of another human being at a level beyond just their utilitarian capacity or the resource that they bring.

2:30 Anyways, I was just thinking about that a lot. And I realized, going back to other topics, things like grit and things like longevity and things like sustainability and all these kinds of concepts, I think this idea has really been hanging with me of digging into what does it look like for us to make a 180 from this? I just am afraid of this. I don't want to experience that. I don't. I'm going this direction because I never want to be whatever. versus I'm going hard into the paint because of my love or passion for what we're doing. And I know it can sound a little nuanced, but I think there's something to wrestle with there that has value to the folks that are going to listen to us.

3:15 So that's where I want to go. Of course, we've got some friends to thank, right? Yeah, it reminds me of, yes, let's get into that, but what's that famous book by either Earl Nightingale or maybe it's Dale Carnegie, The Power of Positive Thinking? Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure who that is. Because it's kind of where my head goes, and of course, it sounds foo-foo. I get it. You know, we're going to talk about love and the power of positive. Let's just let it hang there. It's going to happen. Today, we're going to talk about love and the power of positive. Oh, baby. We're going to get into that. We just set the stage. We're getting into the love. But before we do that, none of this would be possible without our loving sponsors. That's right.

3:56 Loving. And we love them. And we do love them. First, I'll mention it is Liftify. And you can tackle the other partner. Zach and his team are building something really special. And Brandon and I have experimented with different review gathering platforms over the years. And they can be expensive. And in general, we've never gotten awesome results out of those other platforms. Super low numbers. And of course, like many of you that are listening to this, we all say we ask for a Google review. But then when we look at people's Google profile or our own, and we realize, well, geez, last year we did a thousand jobs and we still have 98 Google reviews on our profile.

4:38 And it's like, hooray, we have five-star review. But what happened to all those customers that we asked? that never actually submit a review. The reality is there's a lot of... Or didn't ask. Or didn't ask or whatever. We just don't know. But with Liftify, you know, because all you got to do is have your admin team add closed jobs to the list on Liftify. Everything else is automated. They go to work and they return a 20 to 25% conversion rate. Yeah. So if you're doing a thousand jobs a year, you can expect that you are very likely going to grow your Google profile by 200 plus reviews each year. So imagine the impact. And if you didn't hear the episode we did with Zach Garrett, he goes into just how important...

5:24 the impact in terms of organic lead gen from just your brand name and people finding you on Google just shoots to the moon. Yeah. Once you get this consistent drip of Google reviews happening week in, week out, that there's a lot of value that Google places on that. So anyways... If you don't have Liftify, you should check it out. You'd be doing yourself and your team a favor. The cost is just very, very reasonable. And Zach and his team are very easy to work with. So there you go. Go to liftify.com forward slash floodlight. And we've got some special little perks there for you. Yeah, it's worth it. All right, CNR, Michelle. It's funny, man. I'm kind of at the risk of sounding like a cheese ball.

6:07 It's hard for me to refer to CNR as CNR because it's Michelle. It's like our friend, right? But anyway, CNR Magazine, one of the oldest, largest media platforms for our industry, for sure. She's been driving the ship now for some time, has just done a massive, massive job of of just really changing the shape of it, I think, in general and and really expanding the the resource that it is and and what they bring to the table for us as restorers and our businesses and Obviously, for those of us that serve the industry and aren't necessarily just the restorers. Anyways, long story short, it's a massive resource. It's free to you. There's really no reason for CNR Magazine to not have a place on the team in terms of being in your toolkit.

6:50 So if you're not already a member of CNR, you're not already getting... Subscriber. Yeah, subscriber is the right word. Yeah, thank you. If you're not a subscriber, I don't... Why? Just go subscribe. It's worth it. It's free. And you'll see some of our stuff. It's free. Yeah. We love to be a part of that magazine and part of her online platforms. Here's the thing. Between the podcast, between the online media platforms, between what she's doing live, between the actual print media, there's so much resource. And she's chasing hottest content. totally front runner in terms of tech, people, influence on the industry, change is coming. I mean, you name it, she's kind of involved in it.

7:30 So do yourself a favor, check out CNR and subscribe to CNR. All right, dude. So let's get into it. Love. I don't know. I'm not going to allow you to take over this episode into love. Okay. I just want to warn you right now. There's going to be some love, Inc. Yes. But it's not the whole premise. Well, why don't you set the tone? Because I have some thoughts. It's funny because I have some notes. I have some ideas from earlier this week that I'm like, it kind of fits with what you're talking about. So let's see where you take it. And I may have some stuff to chip in. Okay. Okay. All right. So now the pressure, I feel pressure. All right. So here's, here's a common thing for me. So you and I have talked about all sorts of kind of different things like CVI, Enneagram, there's all these different things that kind of categorize your kind of default wiring.

8:17 And I'm an eight, if you're an Enneagram follower, I'm an eight, which is basically driver, charger, challenger is a term that Enneagram uses. The point is, is I tend to do make a lot of personal adjustments or changes in my life or growth because I identify something I don't like. Like I'm very critical of myself right now. That hasn't always translated into me being the most awesome version of myself by any stretch of the imagination. Yeah. But I have always been good at criticizing myself. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. And what, again, another thing that my wife has kind of brought to my attention is her experience.

9:01 She's been engaged in the environment where she's in constant connection with people. Like her career path has always put her directly in face-to-face interaction with folks and for extended periods of time. And in that, she's just learned over time when she's identified somebody that, in proximity to her that is very critical of themselves, in quotes, she's like, I can almost draw the connection every time to how they are very much so others critical as well. Mm-hmm. And so there's a common theme for a lot of people that kind of fall into my natural wiring that I'm my own worst critic, which we all are to a certain extent. But the reality of it is, is that slips way outside of being directed at us all the time and commonly is spilled out on others.

9:49 But in addition to that, another thing I've just been learning over the years is I've gotten a little bit better of kind of stepping back and having a less biased perspective of how I'm acting. Yeah. Right? Which we talk a lot about. It's like, I'm trying to audit my behavior more as an after action review versus being ego connected to it. Like, I'm just trying to assess, like, how did you respond to that? Is that something you want to continue to do? And as part of that, what I've identified is that I almost take this self-critical and others critical perspective and I've rolled it into what one of my primary motivators is. Mm-hmm. running from this thing. I don't like that. I don't want to do that.

10:29 That I don't agree with, which is all fine. Yeah. Except for what I'm learning is that when I'm excitedly chasing something for the passion of it, for the love of it or out of service to someone I love, the motivation, the fuel in the tank seems to go longer than, than the kind of running from a demon kind of motivator that is common with just the, I'm fearful of being broke, so I'm X. I never want to have a business that struggles for payroll, so because of that, I'm X.

11:11 Does that- 100%. Right? It's just a difference. I don't want to run from something. I want to try to do a better job of identifying the things that motivate me because I'm excited about it, where I'm going. And what's behind me are the things that I'm not consuming or chasing. Like, straight up, who gives a shit? Like, it's not the point. I'm motivated because I'm for something versus being motivated because I'm against something. And last preachy part here. I think the reason I'm thinking about this so much lately is I'm so frustrated by politics. You and I are, so we're business owners. We work in an industry that I think is fairly safe to say probably leans more to the conservative side in general strokes than not.

11:56 Point is, is that I just want common sense to be used when we're talking about politics and making decisions as they affect us and the people in our communities. That seems hard to do right now because everyone is so against everything. Yeah. There's no for. Like even if you look at some of the most activated and loud groups, it's less about what they're for and it's far more about them promoting what they are not, what they're against, what they don't allow or like. Yeah. And so in my mind, I think that's what's fueling this. It's like, how in the fuck have we gotten so wrapped up about what we aren't that we've lost the ability to communicate what we're for?

12:41 Yeah. Because my gut says, in most cases, even if we identify social, political, economical differences, there's a lot of stuff that we could probably openly say that we agree in being for. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Not sameness, equality. Right? Value in people versus not. Like, I think there's plenty of things that we can all look at and say, you know what? If we were all doing a better job being for something, we'd probably find out the line's a little more blurred than we think between parties and perspectives. Right? Yeah. So take that. Or I think you start to see the sameness of all of us.

13:23 Like we all want, we all want to have good health. Yep. We all want to have, I think, good relationships, you know, whether we can articulate that well or not. I think inside, like all of us want to have healthy relationships. We want to be liked. We want to like other people. Right. And I think we all want to improve the standard of living for ourselves and the people we love. Right. So those are all things like we can all get behind. Can't we all unite? We can all unite. Yeah, absolutely, man. The polarity in our world right now is, I think it, I've noticed just a baseline kind of drumbeat of stress that I feel. And I've tried to just notice it.

14:03 I think we've had these conversations about what I think amount to just mindfulness behaviors. Yeah. Like just noticing what's going on in my head. What am I feeling? What's that about? Yeah. And sometimes I can trace it back to Facebook or stuff where I'm seeing friends, just conservative friends, liberal friends. And it's just, man, the vitriol and the pissed off... that people are having, it affects me, even just seeing it. I try not to engage in it as best I can, but it almost drives you to, like, you're supposed to take a side. Like, where do I land on this? And so, I don't know. Yeah.

14:44 And part of me doesn't give a shit. It's part of it. But man, I can easily get sucked into it or my headspace is so negative. And of course, right now, you know, a lot of the public conversation too is, are we in a recession? Are we not? Is it Biden's fault? Is it not? It's like, what's, what's going to happen? Like, yeah, I'm seeing even the word depression, you know, start to enter some of the headlines. And it's like, you know, I don't know if anybody really knows what's going on, but I can't give my head space over to this stuff. I have too many things that I want in my life that are important. And in this, I can't have a material effect on all this other stuff. Yeah. You know, we've talked about this with anger. And I think in general, anger seems to be a common... I don't even know what to call it, like a struggle or something for leaders.

15:27 Yeah. It seems like it's a common profile. Certainly eights are known for their anger. The dark side of eights is they can kind of be seen as an asshole, you know, figure when they get angry and upset and the way they tend to lash out. And I think a lot of us as leaders, we share those attributes. You know, anger is something that drives a lot of us. It motivates us to make change and so forth. And there is something powerful, and we've talked about it many times, of just developing a discipline to notice when you start to feel anger. I don't know if you have any recent stories about this, but God, I just feel like every single day, I have young kids in the house, so there's a lot of reasons to be angry most days.

16:08 I've just noticed the power of saying, God, part of me is just feeling really angry. pissed off right now. And even just noticing, the art of noticing what's going on inside me causes it to loosen its grip on me. Because man, and whether it's anger or it's... Literally, last night, my daughter's away on a little ski trip thingy with her friends. So, it was just me and Kara and the boys at the dinner table. And I was just in a funk. It was part of the funk I brought into this morning because I woke up and I started... My mind, all the stories in my head came back after my morning coffee for whatever reason. But at the dinner table, we were just going around and, hey, how was your day? How was your day?

16:48 And somebody asked me that question. I'm like, eh. I had this one interaction that I was just... I was really... I felt small. You know? Yeah. You have an interaction with a downline employee or a colleague or a customer or something, and you just feel like a dipshit. You just feel crummy. And I was feeling that and I was just told my wife and kids and there was something powerful about just saying it out loud and just noticing what was going on that, you know, they commiserated with me for a minute and we talked it out like, well, what do you mean? And so I told them kind of the general story of this interaction with somebody and they just kind of, they're like, oh, that's crummy, you know?

17:31 And there was something about, it just kind of dislodged it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, in my head, like that story, I just worked it through. I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of, I feel pissed off. I'm, I feel crummy. I kind of felt there was a piece of, I felt insulted. And by the time I kind of thought through it, I'm like, well, I don't even know what that person's intent was. I don't, there's so many gaps in the story and I've kind of got it out of my system. So I think I took us on a big rabbit trail there, but I think where you're going is, yeah, noticing what our motivation is and what's going on inside of us, I think is the first step to this. Yeah. And the fact like you talked about, you unpacked that whole thing of, I tend to motivate myself to change by criticizing myself.

18:14 Right. Right. And what does it look like to flip that script? Yeah. Because here's maybe a little bit more reason why, right? Because I think, I think at first glance, I consider some of this and I go, okay, well, if not wanting to be XYZ or being a bit critical about yourself and being willing to highlight these areas that are weak or that need adaptation or updates or growth or whatever... Yeah, there's not necessarily anything wrong with that. But I think what I'm trying to get better at identifying is what is that sticky residue, right? That this particular type of motivation or default, I don't know, fuel that you use to motivate you towards change or adaptation.

18:58 I think the same things apply just like what Dethmer would talk about in terms of leading above or below the line. Those below the line reactive kind of types of behaviors where... The carrots and the sticks, right? It's the threatening, it's the whatever. It leaves a sticky residue. I think the way that I'm motivating myself on a consistent basis does as well. And one of the things I'm trying to work through as a leader, partially just like in our own business, like, you know, of course the scale doesn't feel exactly the same, but we're growing too. Our little business is taking on team members and we're going to be doing a lot more announcing of what that looks like this year. Point being, we're moving forward.

19:40 We're growing. And in the context of our type of business, we're growing quickly. And there's a lot of stretching and navigating. One of the comments that you made today on our coffee walk was, about the time I get dialed in on the skill level that I need, we freaking push the parameter out again. And then we're back to this place of feeling like, I don't necessarily have the skill set for where we're going right now. And that can get hard to keep up. when everything that you're using to motivate yourself is coming from a negative place. So here's an example. There's a couple of things I can look at, right? And this is, for some people, this is going to sound so damn navel-gazy, but here's an example.

20:23 There's additional tools and resources that I want to create. Okay? I want to do that because really... Our clients deserve it. This is something that we can do for them and create value for them. The headspace that I'm most often coming from is more like... Are we doing enough? You should do this and you should have fucking done it four months ago. We should do this. It should already be done. Right. Are you a pro or are you not a pro? Like all this crap. That's wrong with me. Yeah. Versus, you know what? I really love my client and I want to create the best experience for them I possibly can because I value them. Yeah. Yeah.

21:03 that's an okay motivator. It doesn't need all the other bullshit. I guess is maybe the thing where I'm going with this. And again, sometimes you and I get on a topic and it's like, hey, I'm just going to kind of brain dump what I'm processing. And if somebody else in the audience is like, holy shit, I've been processing something similar, this is one of those. I don't even know if we'll do a good summary. Yeah. But the point is, I know there's a lot of leaders right now that are frustrated with their people, frustrated with the current state of their business, frustrated because sales aren't going the way that they want, frustrated, frustrated, frustrated. Okay, you don't all of a sudden, that doesn't go away. But as a leader, leading ourselves, is there a turn that we could begin to try to make and say, okay, yes, all those things are true right now.

21:45 Mm-hmm. But what's the value of running from something versus can I run towards something? So if I could take the same situation, you know what? I'm very frustrated with my technical staff right now. They really are struggling with documentation. I don't know. Pick a problem. Is there a way for me to look at that and say, look, I really value the experience my employee is going to have. I care deeply about my employees. Yeah. Is there something that I can do with our process, our procedure, or in my hiring practices that will give me the highest chance or the best opportunity to create a real win for my employee or a real win for us as a team?

22:26 Again, I know that maybe for some of us listening to that example, they're like... Okay, dude, you just changed the wording. But I got to challenge you. If your knee-jerk response, when you hear that example is, you're just fucking saying it with a different phrase. But ask yourself the mental and emotional impact. If every single thing that you were chasing to fix in your business, you were doing it out of the motivation to be the best, to be elite, to provide extra value, to create win in relationship, to... It create excitement and engagement in your employees. My gut says, if I spent more time in that space, the problem solving that I have to do as a leader and a business owner, the weight of that would just bear differently than when it's constantly coming from the state of, I can't, I don't, I shoulda, I coulda, I woulda.

23:18 I'm mad. I'm frustrated. We got to fix that. I'm afraid of that. I mean, how many of us make decisions and are motivated because of fear? Really, if we're honest, right? And so, again, I don't have the answer to, I just want to live in a state where I'm not constantly beating the shit out of myself and constantly running from the devil in the shadows. I'd rather just be running after the shit I'm motivated for. It'll probably create the same outcome, but I just think my soul will be happier when I get to the finish line. Hell yeah. I don't know. That's where I'm at, man. I don't know. Dude, our thoughts are incredibly powerful. Yeah. Our thoughts guide everything we do as humans.

24:01 And a lot of times we're doing things out of bullshit thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I'm trying to think what book, I think it was Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth, and he was talking about this, just sort of the way that our brains function, how they've evolved to like, you know, Brene Brown talks about this, how our brains have evolved to fill in all the gaps. Yeah. To create these really vivid, rich stories about why somebody did this or what that sound means that I just heard or how that person did that thing and this is what it means and what the consequence is going to be. We just start filling in all the gaps And a lot of times it's bullshit. Eckhart Tolle, one of the things he says too, is that almost 90% of the thoughts we have are repetitive and nonsensical.

24:45 Yep. Monitor your self-talk for just, you know, you get home today, you're sitting down with a beer, you're cooking dinner, whatever, you're in front of the barbecue, throwing a steak on, whatever it is. And just consider that. Yeah. the kinds of stuff that just repetitively run through our heads. Yeah. And what are the repetitive stories that we have when we walk into our office, into our shop? Yeah. What are the repetitive, and keep a special eye for the negative ones, obviously. Right, right. Right? So much of it is not serving us. Yeah. Yeah. And instead, it's causing us to react out of these, what oftentimes there's bullshit thoughts and stories where we've added in a lot of false information along with real information.

25:27 And we started taking action and we started risking relationships based on how we're... So it's like our thoughts drive everything we do. And so I think us putting a little more attention on it is a real thing and an important thing. Yeah. Hey friends, hey listeners. We're doing something a little bit different with our ads. So you've been accustomed to hearing some ads with our favorite partners and companies in the industry. Now we actually have a product page, our partners page on our website. So floodlightgrp.com forward slash partners. We want to give you a quick rundown though of the people that we're partnering with and we believe in as really go-to resources in the industry. The first one is restorationerp.com, right? ERPs are an important part of our sales process, our customer development process.

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28:27 And I think people just underestimate what happens organically with your SEO search activity when you're getting these new and active five-star reviews from our clients. And we just can't let the pedal up on that because of the effect on our businesses long term. It's a big deal. So check it out. Check out our partners page. Do business with them. You won't regret it. We're confident in that. Floodlightgrp.com forward slash partners. Thanks, guys. I think the other thing you're feeling, and I feel it, is we started with this. All of media is incredibly negative right now. Right. It's just, it's everywhere. And it's one of the reasons why I almost overwhelmingly, nearly 90% of my social media viewing right now is comedians.

29:10 Yeah. Yeah. Like I have gotten really into standup comedy. I love it. I think there's a lot to learn for those of us who do any kind of public speaking training, being in front of people. I think it's just such an, it's a fun way to learn and really perceiving and perceiving all the things. I just, I freaking love standup comedy. Yeah. Yeah. But I also, part of that is I just get depressed with all the negativity. And I didn't notice it for a long time because social media is so addicting. You just find yourself scrolling through all the shit. And I just started to notice, God, I just feel crummy. Yeah. And so I started watching more comedy. It's funny. My wife and I, I'm like, hey, do you want to go to bed early? Let's watch some funnies. You know? Yeah. Just because it makes you feel good versus makes you feel like shit.

29:52 Yeah. Well, our gravel, you know, that's kind of our normal operation at the end of a long day of training. You know, often we'll go back to the hotel. Door dash our food. Fire up some comedy. Fire up some YouTube and watch, you know, a comedy special on Netflix or something like that. Yeah. I mean, it just, it puts me, it's a healthy place for me. Yeah. And I just, I think people are hungry. Yeah. all around us, including ourselves, for positivity. Yeah. So here's just a really dumb, simple example. Okay. So I was at my CrossFit gym Monday morning. It's 5.30 a.m. Not a very positive time of day for most of us. It's like I forced myself.

30:33 It's certainly not the easiest time to be positive. No, no. I forced myself to get there. But anyways, there's this other dude, and I can't even remember his name. He's brand new, and I... whatever, it was layman, didn't ask him, but we were doing front rack squats, which are very challenging. Those of you that have been in the gym for most people, very challenging. I don't put a ton of plates on my bar when I'm doing front squats. Anyway, I walked by this dude and he is a full rack of weights on the bar. two or three 45s and have a significant amount of weight. Anyway. And he's front squatting. And I don't know this guy. It's like his first workout or any way. And I hadn't formally introduced myself yet, but I just walked past and I'm like, holy shit, dude, full rack, man. You know, right on.

31:14 This is how I talk when I'm not on the microphone. You talk like that on the microphone too. Yeah, that's true. And he smiled. And he was like, yeah, rock on. Anyway, I went back to work. And then two minutes later, he's like, hey, by the way, dude, fucking awesome mustache. And... And I felt good. And I just, I know this seems, I don't know, whatever. In that moment, I just observed how powerful kindness is and how contagious it is. And I had several other examples of that. And it's just something I've been trying to lean into is to say the kind things that I think in my head. Yeah. Yeah. So I think maybe I even mentioned it on a previous podcast.

31:56 I was at church a few weeks ago and we had a new worship leader, you know, singing and playing guitar or whatever up front, you know, I sing and I play piano. And so, you know, I'd like, I have an ear for that stuff and he was awesome. And I thought, you know, I'm going to go tell him. Yeah. I'm going to go tell him how great he did. Yeah. Yeah. And it just created this rad moment where I could tell it was gratifying to me. One, it was for him, but it felt really gratifying to encourage him. Like it was obvious it was an encouragement. Like the look in his eyes, the conversation that we had subsequently, it was like, man, okay, this kindness is powerful. Yeah.

32:37 And I think part of it too is being kind toward ourself, which... I think especially in the trades, you know, I say this a lot because I'm from outside the trade. I didn't grow up. I didn't grow up in the trades. And what I see a lot and what I saw when I first got in is there's just this, just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, quit complaining, don't talk about your feelings. There's just like a get shit done And part of that's necessary. And I admire it. I like it. I'm drawn to it. Sort of the hustle of our industry. And it's fucking toxic if we don't manage it. Like if it goes unbalanced, I think all of us have either worked in a team or we're in a team or maybe you're a leader and you've created this, you know, you know, hell yeah, get our shit together, go rock people's face off.

33:32 You've established your entire culture around that. Wait, can you quit your complaining? All this kind of... And I think you know what I'm talking about. There's a cost to that kind of culture. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think ultimately it creates environments at times where people can't communicate. They're not willing to share what's really going on. You're not effectively working with truth a lot of time. You're working either with posturing or compartmentalization with not truth, which really limits our ability to affect the healthy kind of sustainable change in our business. It's contagious. Anger is contagious. And frustration and sadness and loneliness and all those things, they're contagious.

34:14 Just like kindness. Yeah, I was going to say, I think almost in a way, and I think this is what's interesting that we don't, often most of us don't recognize this. I actually think that positivity is far more contagious. It's almost like, all day you were just running and gunning. Maybe you were definitely hit the coffee all day. You'd grab the Coke Zero at some point, but you just haven't done a good job of taking in water. And then later that afternoon or evening or whatever, you take a glass, a cold glass of water. And those first full gulps, it almost feels like you can feel it go through your entire Yeah.

35:11 That it's the contagious level is 10x all the other shit that we're used to being influenced by that negative side. So I almost, it's like for teams that start deploying more focus on the positive spin of why we're doing something or what the value is or why we're passionate about this outcome. I think that stuff, like the teams absorb it so much faster because they're so desperate for it. Yeah. Whereas... I feel like the negative stuff, the sticks, these other kind of negative, more negative-based influences or motivational factors, like you're just dumping that shit in an already full cup.

35:52 So it's like it's landing. Obviously, it's not allowing that level to deplete in any way. So they're just kind of in a constant state of fed up by negativity versus kind of doing this 180 or this engineering a different path, I guess. I don't know. I talk a lot about marriage and family and kids and all that stuff. I've been really trying to hang on. It's funny you brought this up. And I realize we've kind of gone, hit on a few topics here, but this theme of kindness and positivity, it touches so many things, you know? And as a parent, One of the things I'm noticing is just the power of me noticing. Like I said, I'm really trying when I have an encouraging thought or an appreciation for something, I'm really trying to verbalize it like in the moment, just to say the thing.

36:42 Even at grocery stores. So I have this, there's a natural grocery store that I go to to get some whatever. Dude, you're such a hippie dippy. I totally am. Natural grocery store. I know, I know. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I had to go pick up some grass-fed pastured beef. Of course you did. Uh-huh. Yeah. And some organic dried mangoes, whatever. Don't make fun of me. Leave me alone. And there's this checker who's always there and she's just a cool person and she's fun. She's like an artsy fartsy person. She's going to art school. And every single time I see her, she's got like this crazy makeup. And I'm talking to like movie set kind of makeup. Like she just has these different colors and it looks cool. It's not weird.

37:23 It's just like, whoa, man, that's incredible. And so I'll compliment her. Every time I see her, I'm like, wow, my God, that looks amazing. That thing, that pink and purple and blue hair that you did, I'm like, oh my God, it looks like a My Little Pony hair. She's like, oh yeah, that's totally what inspired it. You just made such a weird conversation. My Little Pony, man, that is a- My sister had them. That's a dating game right there. You know what with like the rainbow hair and shit? Yeah, like old school. And so I told her that. She's like, oh my God, that was part of the inspiration or whatever. And it's just such a, like, I feel good when I do that. Yeah. And I can see it in her eyes. Yeah. She feels lifted up. Yeah. As I say this, I'm like, God, I've been, I think I'm generally a fairly kind person, but I'm also very driven.

38:05 And one of the things that comes to mind here, I'm judging myself. But one of the regrets I have is I often just, I am so zoned in on my objective. Yeah. I miss all those opportunities. Yeah. And it's like how much encouragement and building up of my team. Because I've owned different businesses and you and I have built teams together and stuff like that. And it's like, there are so many missed opportunities in my wake. So many. And I can also think too, my first 10 years of having kids, I struggled. I struggled to figure out all this stuff, like how to build businesses and still manage my anger and my mental health and stuff when I'm with kids.

38:46 And now I'm tuned in I think of all the missed opportunities of just encouraging my kids and saying positive things. Because with my kids, I've noticed this over and over and over and over again, particularly my boy, my middle boy. Like when I'm regularly complimenting him on stuff I see, when I'm regularly giving him the fist bump of like, hey, dude, I saw that. That was cool, man. You know, when I'm listening to him play guitar in his room and I just go poke my head in and I make it a point like, dude, that riff was awesome, man. Like, is this a new song? Is this like a new thing? Yeah. You know, like when I just, when I'm conscious enough to do that stuff, everything else gets better. Yeah. And I've actually noticed it's even deeper than my relationship with my boy because we don't have a giant mansion we live in.

39:30 You know, we're all like you hear stuff like when you're home and stuff in the evenings. We're all hearing what's going on, the interactions with each other and the other family. And it's like when I'm tuned in to what's going well and things that I like and I'm complimentary and stuff with my wife and my kids and everything else, it affects the whole rest of the house. Yeah. Like my daughter who's in her room chatting on whatever, you know, she still hears that stuff. Like it creates a positive energy in our, in our house to where all of us like to be home more. Right. You know, whereas I don't know if any of you have teenagers, but I feel funny. I had this conversation with a client.

40:11 He's like, dude, do you ever feel like you just wish your kids would leave and move far away? And I'm like, he's like, cause I feel like a bad person when I say that. I'm like, are you kidding me? You know, I have teenagers right now and I've thought about boarding school about every third day for the last two years. You know, my, my wife likes to reference, uh, Hey, I, I love you all the time, but sometimes I don't like you. Yeah. That's how I feel about my kids. And I'm sure they feel the same way about me from time to time. It's real life. But you know, part of the reason why I feel so negative is because I'm focused on the negative. I'm not, when I'm focused on what's pissing me off about my kid or my employee or a client that's not whatever responding the way I want, when I'm focused on how pissed off I am, I don't see any of the good shit.

40:55 Yeah. Yeah. And I think it comes back to that whole love tank. Yeah. It's all about that. And it also is about ourselves, you know? Yeah. It's like when I'm constantly criticizing myself, I'm making withdrawal after withdrawal after withdrawal. And then I get home, I feel like shit. I'm at the dinner table. I feel crummy. It's because I've been bashing myself the whole day. Yeah. I've been regurgitating that interaction with whomever that made me feel small. And I'm also assessing, what did I do wrong? How did I screw that up? How did I contribute to them treating me that way or saying that thing? And it's just, I'm locked up in it.

41:36 Yeah. And it's not necessarily yielding any kind of outcome you can work with. No. I think that's the part of us that, or part of me that's been wrestling with this is I I'm just asking myself the question, is that methodology getting me what I want? What I want to experience, moving the needle, whatever you want to call it. And I think more times than not, when I do a bit of a detached, as best as you can, review of that, I'm just not seeing what I wanted to anyway. So it's not even that it's actually working all that well. It just tends to perpetuate itself in this negative perspective. Yeah. Listen, man, I'm feeling a little self-conscious and vulnerable right now.

42:18 Okay. All of this personal sharing and feelings and love and kindness conversation. Do we need to get back to the surface or what do we need? I think we should land the plane. We need to get back to the surface. Okay. All right. So here's kind of where we started. I think we're going to just kind of a summary. There's a natural tendency for us to get really hyper focused on the things that aren't working and using that either fear or I'm against that. I'm against this competitor. I'm against that company. Whatever the case may be, when we get stuck in the cycle where everything is from behind. judgment, guilt, shame, fear. I mean, you name it. You guys can come up with your own thing that you believe is your category.

43:01 The reality of it is we all have them. We probably all could call it the same thing, but we won't. Whatever that thing is, when you get stuck in that, and that is the primary motivator, there's something not sustainable about it. There is negativity. There's some kind of sticky residue that's coming from that. And I think when we're motivating ourselves and our teams from a place of what are you for? Yeah. Right? Like, what is it that you are after? Who are you? Not what you're not. Yeah. Like, everybody is very good at saying what they're not and what they're against. And none of us tend to be very good at very clearly articulating what But what are you?

43:44 Who are you? What are you for? Where are you going? And it's interesting too, because I don't want to spin us back up, but there's this reality that our teams and our employees thrive in an environment where they have a clean vision of where they're headed. Well, think about that. What is a clear vision of where we're headed? It has nothing to do what we're not, what we're afraid of, what we're running from. Everyone, if they ask themselves that question, they're going to default to, we want to be a $4 million company. We want to be an $80 million company. We want to be an elite restoration outfit. We want to be XYZ. Stay in that pocket. Yeah. What do we want? What do you want? Who are you?

44:25 What do you want to be aspirational? Where are you headed? Stay in that pocket. And I just, I don't know how this all applies. I think if anything, it's just like, ask yourself some questions. Like when you're in this place where every comment in your mind is about, this is not working. I'm frustrated with this. I can't get in. I'm sick of this. I'm, we've got to fix this because of XYZ. Do a little bit of an exercise. Is there a way for us to re-spin that and be like, okay, I started frustrated, but what am I excited about? I don't, I, okay. I have to, I don't like that word. Which one? Spin it. Oh, spin it. Spin it. And I, I don't, I don't know that you mean it this way, but like I, when I hear spin it, it takes me back to my car sales days, actually way back, like 15, 16 years ago, yeah.

45:14 When I sold cars because it's car sales. It doesn't have to be this way, but it's just very. It can fall to this. Yeah. It can be kind of slimy and spin doctoring and like. Oh yeah. I see what you're saying. That whole like deceptive kind of thing. Yeah. And it sounds fake. Spinny. Oh, sure, sure. Faking it or whatever. Whereas I think what you're talking about and what we're talking about is... Shifting? Yeah, it's choosing to look at the other side of the coin. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I'm focusing on the negatives. And because of that, I can't see the positive... I can't see what I'm grateful for in this situation because I'm so fucking hyper-focused on the negative. And if I just pause and turn the coin over, I have that opportunity to be like, oh shit.

46:01 Yeah. We have this other stuff going on. It's really amazing. Yes. Yeah. Anyway. No, I think you're right on it. And that is, it's, it's the shifting. It's being intentional. I think that's a good, I think that's a good point. It is intentional. Yeah. It's not polishing a turd is what I'm saying. Exactly. Yeah. It's not a fake trying to look at the positive. No, it's legitimately stopping your lizard brain from controlling the cycle that you're spinning in so that you can get focused and oriented on the other aspects of the truth and reality that you live in. That you can do something about too. Which is stuff is happening. There's a lot of positive things happening in our businesses, in our relationships, in our homes.

46:43 You know, it's funny, like... I know we want to wrap this conversation up, but it's very interesting to me, man. For all intents and purposes, we can look at our business and there is thing after thing after thing that lines up. I'm going to give you a cheesy example that just hit me this last couple of days. So you and I right now are interviewing consultants. And we're also onboarding for the first time additional media, social media support staff and things like that. And for those of you that aren't religious, the point will still be the same here. So hang in the pocket. I literally started yesterday in a dumb headspace. And I started getting very frustrated. We're doing some transferring of using certain software systems right now that have created more hassle than I was anticipating.

47:27 Of course, right? Surprise, surprise. We're stressed out about the fact that there's some pretty key things that we need to do as we onboard new team members to be good leaders to them. All this stuff, right? And I'm starting from this place of I'm frustrated. I have to do these things. I've got the weight of this other thing that I need to do. And this is my episode for my wife. My wife is literally showing me via text message things like our new team member saying something like, man, it was really great to meet everybody today. I've been praying for this for a long time. Or if we think about the caliber of people that we're talking to right now that want...

48:08 to look at what it would be like to be a part of our team. There's so much positive weight in those things. And somehow I spent the bulk of my day being totally drilled in on the negative aspects of some of the stuff you got to fucking wrestle with. It just is what it is, right? Dude, speaking of that, I could see you did a great job running our first staff meeting. That's good. Yesterday. So we had, like we've had staff meetings, but it's been a small group and that group is getting bigger now. And I could just, I could also see just the light in Brandon's eyes, like with multiple people up on our Zoom screen for this meeting. It's just there, like all of us have been really hungry to... grow and expand the team and get back to have because like yeah because we've always had big teams around us you know and it's really fun and you're exactly right man it's like amidst all of the normal bullshit that's gonna keep coming you step back and you're like wow no there's some really important things we can be grateful for that's it man that's it so like let's sign off with this guys Look around.

49:13 Look around at your business. Look around at your families. Look around your sphere of influence. Look around peers. Think about your friendships. Think about other business owners that you know and have some kind of camaraderie with. What are you for? What's pause, right? What is it in your business that is dialed in? What do you have to be thankful for? Yeah. What can your team be chasing because of the passion for it, because of the love for it, because of the excitement around it, because it's aspirational versus I'm running from something, right? Let's stop being focused on what we're against and really hammer down on what are we for? What are we for?

49:55 And like always, we try to close out the show. If you love the Head Heart and Boots podcast, if you enjoy Brandon and I and the guests we bring on, if you're getting something out of this, the best way, it's free. Yeah. It's free. It's free to you, but there is a cost. And the cost is we'd love for you to help us build our audience and build the community here at Head Heart and Boots. We do hear that it's helping people. People appreciate it and we're committed to that. But if you can help us, make it more sustainable, you can do that by sharing the podcast, telling your friends about it on LinkedIn, certainly becoming a subscriber yourself. If you've just kind of been intermittently popping in, be a subscriber so you get all of our newest episodes. If you need one-on-one consulting, our team is growing.

50:37 Our capacity to serve, the industry is going to significantly ramp up this year. And so if you're looking for a partner to help your company grow and adapt, to the changing environment, we would certainly love to chat. You can find us at floodlightgrp.com. You can also message Brandon and I both on LinkedIn. And I'd recommend if you're not already, please follow us on LinkedIn. Follow Floodlight for all of our stuff. Watch for more videos. We've got some cool stuff that's going to be coming out on LinkedIn and Facebook. We have a full-time social media manager now. How fancy is that? Anyway, that's it. Until next time. Thanks. We'll see you. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for joining us for another episode of Head, Heart, and Boots.

51:21 And if you're enjoying the show, but you love this episode, please hit follow, formerly known as subscribe, write us a review, or share this episode with a friend. Share it on LinkedIn, share it via text, whatever. It all helps. Thanks for listening.