Fast Five for Friday: Cultivating Energy, Giving When It’s Hard, and Back to Fundamentals

0:00 Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners. And this is your Fast Five for Friday. All right, number one... This week was a week of hard conversations. I had several of them. And it was such a reminder to me this week as I went throughout my week, the value of having those hard conversations. I've talked about it on the show before. And look, it's one of those things. Most of us don't want to do it. Because it's uncomfortable. It's either uncomfortable for us. It's uncomfortable for the other person. It's uncomfortable for both people. We start worrying about the outcomes.

0:41 All of those types of things. And the truth of the matter is that when we avoid those hard conversations, we end up, number one, Things fester internally. We leave loops open. We don't move things forward. There's not progress. We're halted. And internally, it leads to a lot of angst spiritually, mentally, emotionally, even physically. And here's one of the other things that really struck me this week. In those hard conversations, sometimes you go and have a hard conversation and what you don't expect is the feedback or the response that you're going to get in return to that.

1:21 And sometimes there's validity in it. And sometimes it's really tough to hear. It might be constructive criticism. It might be somebody you care about saying something to you that you don't necessarily really want to hear, but that you need to hear. And I wanted to mention this with regard to tough conversations. One of the things that I believe separates a great leader from a poor leader is a leader's ability to receive constructive criticism and feedback differently. during difficult conversations like that. That happened to me this week. It didn't feel awesome in the moment, but when I got on the other side of it, I'm going to be honest, I needed to hear it.

2:02 And it actually allowed me to grow and expand as a result of being willing to receive it instead of just shutting it down right out of the gate. All right, number two. This is a quote that I got out of Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek, which is a book that I am deep into right now. And it's a phenomenal book. The audio book is excellent. Simon does read it. And this is such a great quote on leadership and management. This is by, this is actually Bob Chapman, the CEO of Barry Waymiller. And he says, no one wakes up in the morning to go to work with the hope that someone will manage us.

2:45 We wake up in the morning and go to work with the hope that someone will lead us. Whoo. Let that sink in for a minute. So here's my question to you. Are you walking in the door every day with the people that you're going to battle with? And are you looking to manage them? Are you actually leading them? And what do you think it is that they're really looking for? Because here's the thing. Would you get this right when you learn how to lead instead of just manage? And listen, I've done both, by the way. I've been stuck in that rut where I'm just managing people and not leading intentionally. So are you leading intentionally?

3:27 And what do you think would happen if you started leading intentionally if you're not right now? Here's the truth. People respond intentionally. to leaders. They don't respond to managers. And people take incredible inspired action and produce unbelievable results when they're doing something that they believe they're a part of. And you can't do that if you're just managing someone. You do that when you're truly a leader and you're bringing them along. All right, number three. I've been listening to, just listened to a fabulous podcast from Jay Shetty and Lewis Howes on the subject of money.

4:09 There are lots of them out there. And Lewis has recently written a new book on money. I'll be honest. I literally just finished listening to this podcast. I don't know the name of the book yet, but Google Lewis Howes money book or whatever. You'll find it won't be hard. But the podcast itself is a must listen. It's wonderful. I love the take on money. It's really getting down to the core of money beliefs and money psychology and our history with money and how all of that plays a factor in the way that we show up and make decisions with money, how we treat money, all of that stuff. And in the midst of the episode, they got to a point where they were discussing giving.

4:54 And there was really this very strong push to give, especially when you don't have much. And for any of us as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we've all been there. I've been there multiple times where you hardly have anything in the bank. There's not much coming in. There's not much prospect of new stuff coming in. And you think to yourself, my God, how could I give at a time when I don't have? And it truly is one of the most powerful times to give. Tony Robbins talks about this quite a bit. And they had a nice conversation about it on the episode.

5:37 But Jay Shetty dropped a line that he got from one of the monks at his monastery. And this was so good. He said, God doesn't see what you give. God sees what you hold back. I'm going to say that one more time. God doesn't see what you give. God sees what you hold back. Holy cow, there's so much magic in that. And it really dials in the idea that like, look, it's not about giving some massive amount. It's about how much do you have that you can give that you're not. So if you've got five bucks in your pocket and you're holding on to all five, this is what we're talking about.

6:20 And I love it. I absolutely love it. Number four, um... This past week, I was on a business trip in Nashville. It was breakneck pace, long days, not enough sleep, got whacked in the face by the awesomeness of Tennessee Spring, which I don't miss from my wonderful almost eight years of living there. And I got home, man, and I was jacked. I woke up Saturday morning, felt like I got hit in the head with a hammer. And what did I do early Saturday morning? I got up and I went to the gym. So the reason I'm mentioning this is that I didn't go because it was like, oh, I'm going to like, I'm going to tell myself that I've got all the discipline and, you know, blah, blah, blah.

7:10 It wasn't grinding it out. That wasn't what this was about. I went because I go to the gym for a different reason than most. And one of the biggest reasons that I go to the gym, especially when I don't have it or I don't have a lot of energy, is I go to the gym to create it. Most people go to the gym when they have energy and they decide not to go when they quote unquote don't. I don't look at it that way through a lifetime in health and fitness. I look at going to the gym as cultivating energy. Now, I want to be clear. When I went. I didn't go drag my beat up ass to the gym and go chase some PR or something like that.

7:54 That's not what happened. I went to the gym. I did lift. I didn't like go at a breakneck pace. I didn't try to go as hard as I possibly could. And I felt amazing when I got done. I cultivated the energy that I didn't have. So I just want to leave you with this question. What are you doing in your life to cultivate energy? Because that's really what this is about. We've talked about it on the show before. We don't have it or not have it. We create it. We cultivate it. We maintain it by our habits and our actions. Lastly, number five. Uh, speaking of health and fitness, I was having a great conversation with my friend Colleen Shaw, uh, about marketing this week.

8:38 And we were talking about the fact that so many people that we know, and both of us have done this by the way, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, So many people that we know, especially in the coaching industry, have a habit of going straight to the ninja tactics. They skip all the basics. They don't really know anything about marketing. They haven't been a student of the game. They just go to the shiny object tactics, all of the advanced shit, and then wonder why they can't create something that's sustainable. Yeah. And it got me thinking, you know, going back to my days as a health and fitness coach, you know, within, I would say, about the last 18 months that I was running my business, I had gotten to a point where when I had a new client that walked in the door, I literally would not give anybody a nutrition plan or quote unquote diet for minimum.

9:30 of like a month and a half, usually almost two months. And they'd walk in the door, they go, okay, what's gonna be the meal plan? You know, what am I gonna eat? And my response to them infallibly, and this was with every single client, was all right, for the first two weeks, this is what I want you to do. And they'd get all buttered up and they're ready to go. You got a pen ready. Okay, you ready? Eat slowly to 80% full. Wait, what? What? Yeah, you heard me. Eat slowly to 80% full. And I want you to do that. And I want you to do it for two weeks. Every day.

10:10 Track your progress. I don't care what it is. I don't care what you eat. I don't care if you go get a fucking milkshake. Eat slowly to 80% full. That's all I want you to do. After two weeks, I go, okay. All right, now I'm ready for the diet plan. I'm ready for the nutrition plan. Okay, here's what I want you to do. I want you to eat slowly to 80% full. And I want you to make your meals comprised of only whole foods. Wait a minute. But what Whole Foods? I don't care. Just make it Whole Foods and eat slowly to 80% full. Here's my point. What was remarkable about that is that I tried doing this. I was really scared to do it. When I started doing it in my business, people got better results way faster because they were actually mastering the fundamentals.

10:58 And it seems counterintuitive. It's the same thing in marketing. I want to encourage you as it relates to your marketing to cut it out with the shiny object tactics right now. And if you haven't studied marketing and become a student in the game, go and learn. Because here's the deal. You don't have to be an expert marketer. That's not necessary for you to be successful in business. But if you don't understand it at all, you will flail around and you will be subject to other people who wave shiny tactics in front of your face. And eventually they break and you know the rest of that story. All right, I'm a little over time today. Look, it was only me and I'm still over time. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation Podcast.

11:38 Until next time, be well.