I’ve got a poorly kept secret for you:
I love coaching and helping leaders just like you.
My friends, I resonate with you.
I live and breathe here in the blue-collar world and space and industries.
And like you, I’ve heard a lot of beliefs and “truths” out there that the so-called masters say are absolutes.
I lived and died by a lot of these, and they held me back.
My friends, these myths hold us down and keep our business and team, and clients from achieving the best they can be.
So today, I wanted to do a quick dive into these business myths and what the masters told you wrongly.
Let’s open our eyes here, fellow leaders and changers in life.
There are some myths that we carry about the “masters.”
What does the master mean?
Well, there are five things I want to share with you, and we’re just going to jump right into it and let you resonate with your own thinking around it.
#1 All You Need Is An Awareness Of Your Field Or The Right Practices
What creates master status in the trades or in the service business?
How do I become a master?
These people that operate at $10 or $100 or $500 million in revenue must have the knowledge that I don’t have.
They must have awareness.
The first myth is awareness is all you need, so false.
It’s not true.
You need a lot more than awareness.
Yes, you need some awareness, but awareness is not where it resides.
Yes, there’s a certain level of understanding certain things about the market or the way the world works.
There’s an awareness component, but that is a myth to think that’s all of what you need.
It’s part of the success equation.
It’s part of who you are becoming as an owner, as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as an operator, as a service manager, or whatever the case and whatever the role is.
You need a lot more awareness.
You need awareness of the things that you need to learn and do and act differently.
But action is where it comes from.
The awareness to know alone doesn’t change anything.
When I did the deep work and said, “Oh my gosh, I need to do some work on myself. I’m at a point in my life where stuff needs to change. I need to get sober.”
That was an awareness.
A lot of people have that awareness, but to take action on it and say, “I’m sober for life,” to draw a line in the sand and get started doing the work, that’s a big, different thing.
So awareness is a necessary component, but it’s not everything.
The same is true here. I need to charge more.
Oh, I need to shift my marketing.
Oh, I need to train more.
I need to get better coaching.
That’s awareness.
But the action is where it’s at.
#2 If You Can, Then You Should
Write this down, and then burn the sheet of paper.
Just because you can do something (fill in the blank, whether it’s a skill, whether it’s an activity, whether it’s a function in the business, or whatever) doesn’t mean you should.
We think the “masters” can do it all.
No.
You become a master by saying no to more things and getting better at the things that you’re really, really good at.
Get the things that you are not your true, unique genius off of your plate, out of your psyche, and stop doing those things on a daily basis.
You become a true master of the game of life and business not by doing everything but by doing what you’re natural, the universe, or God-given purpose is.
Just because you can do it doesn’t mean that you should be doing it.
I’m not a formally trained plumber.
I’ve never operated in HVHC or electrical.
But I was able to build a business that operated and exploded in trades that I “knew nothing about” because I was able to hire skilled individuals.
I could have tried to learn how to do it all, but I would have failed. And the business would have failed too.
The same is true at every level and in every twist.
Just because you can run the meeting doesn’t mean you should run the meeting.
Just because you can do your onboarding process doesn’t mean you should.
Even if you can do the hiring, it doesn’t mean you should.
It’s a myth.
Find your purpose, your natural strengths, the things life and experience gave you, and do that to the best of your ability.
#3 If I Care About My Team, I’m Going To Get Burned
If I care, they’re going to get there; they’re going to burn me.
They’re going to leverage that training I offered, and they’re going to use that against me.
Get it out of your head.
It’s a myth of the masters.
The masters keep this big corporate veil.
They say to stay away from your team. You know what?
I’m using the word master very loosely here.
I think the master shows up in many different ways, but really mastery is about you mastering your own life situation in your own emotional regulation.
We have this tendency where we put people running big businesses on a pedestal.
Here’s the deal:
Care more about your team and see what happens.
I believe that we’re in a place in the world today where if you don’t care, that’s going to burn you.
You gotta care about your people, and why wouldn’t you?
If you’re a people person, then why wouldn’t you care about people?
And if you’re not, then get out of this business.
You don’t belong in leadership because leadership is a people business, and the home service industry is even more so.
#4 The Workforce Is Naturally Lazy And Just Here For The Check
The fourth myth of the masters is that there’s a lazy workforce and people are just here for the check.
There are only a few good people out there.
And the big companies have all of them.
Really? Do you want to keep telling yourself that myth, that limiting belief?
As long as you believe there’s a lazy workforce, you’re going to create a lazy workforce in your own company.
At one point, I was up against 100 competitors or something in my HVAC business. I was up against tons of people, and I told my leadership team: “We don’t need everybody.”
I didn’t care what everyone else was doing.
We only needed 10 trucks at that moment/
I don’t care what the workforce is doing as an entity, as an overall.
What I care about is what we put on the field.
It doesn’t matter.
Stop worrying about the entire workforce, and stop worrying about what the news says.
What I know is I need a plumber, and I’ve got an ad open for a plumber.
What’s it gonna take for us to fill that truck that will set you free?
It’s a myth that the workforce is lazy, and it’s perpetuated by people that are perpetuating laziness all day long.
I’m not mad at them.
I have compassion for them.
Protect your mind and your beliefs, and your thoughts because this is what guides your actions. Your mind is very powerful and where you focus your attention absolutely dictates the results you get.
Speaking of focus, check out this article we did on the importance of focus and how to direct your mind in powerful ways.
#5 Size (And Money) Eliminate Frustration
Let that land for a minute.
The size of my business will ultimately eliminate frustration.
What do I mean by that?
All of us have had it.
We’ve had it show up in income.
If we think about personal income, and then we start thinking:
Oh man, you know, if I could just break a million in sales, then I wouldn’t be frustrated.
I wouldn’t have this challenge.
Wait a minute.
Maybe the answer isn’t 1 million in sales; it’s 2 million. That’s only double, right? Or maybe it’s 3?
It’s a slippery slope chasing the time when frustration disappears (it doesn’t!).
I made an acquisition, and I was in a small market a while ago, so it was big growth to go from 1.2 to 3 million and in a very short period of time.
But I remember at one point; I thought 3 million would make my frustration go away.
It’s a myth.
It’s a myth to think the bigger your business gets that your frustrations will go away.
Your frustrations may change.
They may evolve.
They may shift, but there are certain frustrations that people will have.
And that’s why I think it’s important to talk about how frustration is tied to emotional regulation.
Emotional Regulation Will Make The Real Difference
The true key to success in life is managing emotional regulation.
When you don’t ride the ups and downs and the highs and lows and the frustration and the pain, everything’s amazing.
Take hitting a budget, for example.
With emotional regulation:
Oh, I hit the budget. That’s cool.
Whoops, I missed it. That sucks, but I’ll do better and reflect and retune and grow.
Without emotional regulation:
We hit the budget! I’m a God of business and basically the best in the entire field.
Oh my God, we missed the budget.
Somebody take me to the shooting range and firing squad and kill me because I’m a horrible person.
No, you just missed the budget!
At the end of the day, you either hit budget, or you miss budget.
It’s not that big of a deal.
The world’s not gonna end.
The sun’s gonna come up tomorrow.
Final Thoughts
I know I make it all sound so simple, but I know it’s not in practice.
At the end of the day, and I speak with massive compassion here because I’ve struggled most of my life until the last several years around emotional regulation.
Some of you knew me long before I found any emotional regulation.
He’s a passionate speaker. He’s a passionate leader.
I still have the passion, but I was tired.
I rode this roller coaster of pain and just went from one high to the next low, back to the next high, back to the next low and, and all these different things.
Now, I take the hits and think and grow and maneuver.
The size of the business is going to be the size of the business.
There’s complexity in business because there’s complexity in human beings.
As our businesses grow, we grow team members.
And with that, we’ve got to elevate our capability.
Check out my article on building growth capability the right way.
These myths are going to hold you back, so break free from the “masters” and find your path through the people business by focusing on the people, your emotional regulation, and finding your primary purpose.
Until next time, make it a better-than-fantastic day!