Sacrifice In Leadership: It’s A Myth! 

Have you bought into the belief that leaders need to give everything they have and everything they are to their business? 

Do you feel like if you’re not burning out, you’re failing your team?

We’ve got many leadership models, and today I wanted to jump in and bust up this myth of sacrifice in leadership. 

Most of us grow up with a lot of different mindsets around sacrifice and scarcity, and abundance. 

But is it right? True? Accurate?

I’m not so sure, and I talk about this a lot. 

To win, does someone else have to lose?

To win, do you have to give something up or take something from someone else?

I don’t think so.

Let’s dig into this topic a little bit to make sure we’re giving the right things to our business. 

What Is Sacrifice?

We have this belief that it’s all about sacrifice. If you don’t give every waking hour and ounce of emotional and mental energy to your business, you’ll fail. 

And I want to challenge that today. 

So let’s just jump in right now and talk about a competition going on in your mind. 

There’s a major competition. 

We think about competition in the marketplace and this company in that home service business.

We compare ourselves to others. 

These people can recruit better, sell better, service a bigger audience, etc.

There’s all this competition that we kinda tend to think about. 

It’s a massive, massive competition. 

And it’s happening in your mind right now, as we speak.

You’re probably thinking of a million things and ideas. 

There’s a possibility. There’s optimism and fear. 

How do you get to do all these things and ideas? 

Too many of us driven-minded leaders will go for it all and sacrifice everything to get there. 

It rarely works out that way. 

Mindset Matters

Here’s one thing I want you to realize, my friend: 

There are all kinds of accumulative fear and negativity in the world in a lot of ways. 

And if the market’s good, it’s about when the market’s going to be bad. 

And if the market’s bad, it’s about how much worse it’s going to get. 

If there’s a pandemic, it’s about how many people are going to die. 

If there’s a vaccine, it’s about how it’s not going to work. 

When we start realizing that most of the world lives their lives with a scarcity mindset (where good things are rare and won’t last), we’re able to perhaps take a look and free ourselves a little bit to make some decisions and choices about how we want to operate as leaders. 

Our team members are being assaulted non-stop every day, with the same things and the same types of challenges.

We need to be aware of what the message we send is. 

I want to break down two mindsets for you: scarcity mindset and abundance mindset. 

Scarcity Mindset

The scarcity mindset is built around the idea that there will never be enough or those good things will run out. 

And maybe there’s some truth to this, but in my experience as a leader and human on this earth, we’re far too worried about this. 

I’ve made my home and our office headquarters in the Phoenix, Arizona, area. 

In Phoenix, people have been saying; we’re running out of water. 

They’ve been saying we’ve been running out of water for as long as I can remember coming here with grandparents as a child. 

Now we’re tied for the fourth largest city in the United States, maybe moving up toward third, and yet we’re still gonna run out of water, and that’s going to be it.

I want you to think about that for a minute in your own business and with your team members.

If I’m going to sell this particular AC system, then I need to beat out my competitor in our contracts and sales to win. 

However, there’s this bigger global belief system that if I win or succeed, then that means my business will grow, and everybody else has to fail. 

If I’m going to win, then people have to lose. 

I’m not talking about winning the deal on the small level; I’m talking about the bigger picture. 

We often think we have to win every battle to win the war.

Collaborate Over Compete

This is a fallacy, a false belief; we fall into easily. 

I’d rather collaborate than compete. 

That’s one of the reasons I’m about to start hosting guests on my podcast. 

Check it out if you haven’t yet. 

There’s some crossover with the blog posts, but there’s also a fair amount of new material, and guests are one of the things unique to it. 

So follow them both and become a better leader in your industry! 

Anyway, I’m going to have competitors of Blue Collar on my podcast. 

What? Are you crazy? They’ll steal your business. 

I don’t have a scarcity mindset. 

There isn’t a finite number of successful thought leaders in the world. There isn’t a set number of AC units to sell. 

I’m confident in my purpose and my strengths, and what I have to offer the world. 

Aren’t you? If not, maybe you need to rethink how your business works. 

Anyway, so we can all just collaborate. Everybody. 

That’s doing something positive for the industry. 

Some people choose Blue Collar. Some people choose something else. 

That’s okay. 

It’s about abundance. 

Abundance Mindset

Today, I want you to give some honor about your scarcity mindset and where it comes from. 

When we think about conditioning, I’ve talked about in the past with beliefs. 

You know, we have parents that kind of help from our core belief systems. 

We have our peers who help us with emotional skill belief systems and how we kind of relate to one another. 

Then we have previous experience belief systems that form from what works and what doesn’t work. 

It’s more about embracing what you want and how you’re going to lead your team. 

With our pre-held beliefs, what are some examples?

• Work hard
• Save every penny
• Delay gratification
• Postpone feelings of success to build security
• Something’s gotta give to succeed

This is all about scarcity. I’m not saying working hard and saving money and living frugally is a bad thing; it’s great! 

But why are you doing this?

Are you doing this for future success?

My friend, you don’t have to wait for success; you can have it right now. 

You can have success and feelings of satisfying purpose as you take your steps on the path to growth. 

And your business will reflect that too! It shows up in how you and your team conduct business, and it sure as heck shows up in your business’s growth. 

But why are you waiting and delaying and sacrificing your life and success now?

Layover Mentality

I call this a layover mentality. 

I travel a lot for business and speaking and coaching, and, yes, for vacations and retreats too. 

My wife and I are often on layover.

I spent a lot of my career in a small town in western Colorado, and we had to go to Denver to connect just about anywhere. 

I spent so many hours of my life in DIA. 

It’s not even funny. 

And I felt like that was how a lot of people live their lives. 

I’ve felt this too; my life was on a layover, and I was waiting for the connection for life to start. 

But I was already living! 

I was waiting to get to the event, waiting to get to the coaching situation, waiting to get to the client, or whatever it was. 

I was stuck in that airport on a layover. 

How is this showing up in your life? 

There is an abundance of success in life and business. 

Whether you’re installing heaters or fixing plumbing, success is there, and it’s abundant. 

Don’t buy into the scarcity mindset. 

Don’t wait for it to come or sacrifice your life and work waiting for some magical day to arrive. 

It’s here; it’s abundant. 

Go get it. 

Three Ways To Break Free Of Sacrifice And Scarcity Mindset 

One of the things that also reinforces our scarcity mindset is how we handle our past. 

There are three things I want you to think about when it comes to past experiences and mistakes. 

1. Honor
2. Love 
3. Release

I’ve got to honor my past, which means I respect it. 

I’ve got to love it, which means I have a deep affection for it. 

And then I’ve got to release it, which means set it free. 

Trust me, my friends: I’ve done some things in my life that I’m not proud of. 

I’ve operated as a leader in things that I could absolutely embarrass myself about. 

And some of you may have been around when some of those types of things happened, right?

But at the end of the day, one of my mentors taught me: 

You must love your past to create a bigger future. 

I tried to out-create my past. 

I tried to outproduce my past. 

Those are the things that build up and how we shift from this scarcity mindset. 

When I think about an abundance mindset, how does that show up? 

When you accept it, you believe there’s endless room for growth.

There’s an opportunity for everybody here. 

Don’t Sabotage Your Abundance Mindset

How do we sabotage abundance? 

Let’s think about that. 

If I know that everything’s getting expanded exponentially bigger and there’s endless room for growth, there’s no issue, right? 

Well, that gets sabotaged. 

Well, let’s say perfectionism, limiting beliefs, or negative thinking, right? 

We think about confirmation bias and how that might show up. 

What do I mean by confirmation bias? 

Well, take a religious confirmation bias. 

If I’m just going to my church and I’m talking to the people that believe the way that I believe, I’m not questioning anything or growing. 

I’m sabotaging my abundance mindset by removing part of the abundance of life.

If it takes a perspective of the pandemic that I’m only watching one set of news, then I’m buying into confirmation bias. 

I am limiting my beliefs.

If you take politics, I’m only watching the channels that reinforce my own bully. It’s common on both sides. 

“Homework” For You

Here’s what I want you to do: 

I want you to write some things down.

Ask yourself:

What are two things I was taught about money and success that might be holding me back?

Okay. So write those down. 

Now, send them to me at Kenny [AT] kennychapman [DOT] com. 

I’d love to hear from you. I’d love the chance to include your beliefs in a future episode to help a lot of folks.

What are some examples? 

• Money doesn’t grow on trees
• You can’t buy happiness
• You can’t live where you want and have the income you want 

Those are limiting beliefs that were created into my subconscious programming. 

Now, let’s do one more: 

What is something you’re afraid to do that you’ve always wanted to or been told you “can’t” do?

Let’s get real. Here’s my example.

I needed to stop drinking to have the next level of my life. 

It was a problem. It held me back, and I was told—I believed—it was impossible to live as a leader and business owner without using alcohol as a social tool and coping mechanism.  

Finally, I tossed that belief out by honoring what I had learned, loving the good parts of my life a the time, and releasing that wrong belief that kept me in a scarcity mindset without realizing it. 

So a long time ago, I quit drinking, and I just completely changed my life. 

How is this showing up for you? 

Last one: 

Where is that layover mentality showing up in your life?

Where are you waiting for life or success to happen?

How can you accept success or find it on the path toward that goal?

My friends, if you take anything away from today’s article, let it be this: 

You don’t need to sacrifice your happiness now for success later; there’s more than enough to go around. 

Until we talk again, make it a better-than-fantastic day!