It may... will... definitely hurt!

“I think you need to quit this job… you are not challenged, inspired, and in fact, your team can’t stand you.”

How would you have taken that feedback? Which emotion would you have chosen to display in your response? Would you have mentioned the other person’s mother in the response? All valid questions…

Want to know something shocking… that came from a conversation between an executive coach and their client.

Fairly blunt, wouldn’t you agree?

It should be…

This week, I am tackling the uncomfortable conversation of why complacency will KILL your focus, leadership, and business…

Not to be blunt, but I hope something you read today hits a nerve and sets you on a new course to do something new! That is the whole point of this newsletter series.

Let’s begin with this fact: complacency is the death of inspiration. We could end the article there, but that’s very surface level, and we need to flip the iceberg over to really see what happens.

Our minds are one of the most complex systems on the planet, and the fact that each mind does not match another is, well, mind-blowing (insert your laughter).

This fact also means that different experiences have shaped each mind and the level at which that person wants to succeed. The level of "drive," as we can call it, differs from person to person.

We see the individuals who acquire massive success, wealth, awards, accomplishments, and more develop the ability to inspire drive in their thought process. They became accustomed to pain! They build a relationship by doing something new because they know it will produce a greater impact and result!

But why is that? Why were they "chosen" to receive that kind of mindset? Who said at their births, "This person right here will become a leader, great business owner, NFL player, professional in their field, etc." The reality is that no one did. No one determined that at their birth. They built their mindset through adversity, challenges, environmental situations, and more.

The key to this principle is that these individuals learned to cope and develop the reasoning skills to process that something "new" and "uncomfortable" would equate to something better.

Now, if you want to debate with me, you could ask the question directly by stating that people who are not successful or lack the ability to change fail to see that change equates to growth. Or then, if successful people are that of the idea above, then why are some successful people awful leaders, business owners, or just awful in general?

To that, I would extend my arm for a handshake as there will never be a direct answer due to my point at the beginning of this article. No two minds will ever be identical.

BUT. Yes, here comes the but part of this article! You had to know it was coming.

We all have done this!

Those who struggle to move forward, advance, conquer, and be victorious often find themselves okay with being okay. In fact, I would even argue that they did go the distance to be a winner but found themselves in an environment where they didn't sustain the force needed to back the intensity. They dialed it down.

Then you have those who never pushed themselves enough to know what their limit actually is, and then they developed a false ceiling in their thinking. You can never say it's a limit if you never pushed past a limit of forced stoppage.

In terms of weightlifting... you don't know your max till it is stuck on your chest, stuck on your back, or you can't move it off the ground. When you find yourself in that situation, you will know the maximum force you can produce.

This concept is the same for our individual growth and professional day to day interactions with companies. Many leaders, over the course of time, push and push to find the maximum success, and either they couldn't handle the force to sustain it, or they never pushed enough and capped themselves.

I want to circle back to my beginning line and the last part, where I wrote, "Your teams can't stand you." This segment right here I have witnessed, been involved in, and seen more times than I am proud to admit.

There are countless stories of leaders who are capped because their leaders capped themselves, so the process begins. We have all heard about and have seen organizations where leaders don't move out so someone else can move up. In the process of that happening, the mindset begins to spread like wildfire, and then the company is full of complacent thinkers... all because of one person.

I understand that if it is not breaking, then don't fix it and that consistency is a good thing- but I challenge that phrase when the results become leveled- meaning there is no longer a next dot indicating growth on the company chart.

The line becomes a flat railroad on the chart, and leaders began to feel okay with that line running straight. Some argue that there is only so much growth that can occur, but I want you to think about earlier. We won't know what that is until we absolutely hit that mark. The problem is that too many people are afraid to find out.

Complacency becomes a mindset when the mind becomes complacent!

Look deep inside your mindset, inventory where you shy away from, and learn to push yourself closer to that area. Invite that "problem" into your life and attack it gradually!

I'll share a specific example and the time I had a client who was deathly afraid of hurting their teams' feelings, so they shied away from coaching conversations. Who was getting hurt the most in that situation? It wasn't the leader but the employees who worked for them because they were now capped due to never receiving the developmental conversations they needed to hear.

I made it a point to ensure it was very clear that the leader understood it was not about them... it was about their teams not being allowed to grow, and they were robbing them of that growth.

Once my client heard it put in that perspective, it hurt them because they did care about their teams, and they did want to see them succeed, but they became so complacent with avoiding the conversations that it became their normal way of thinking. Until they heard it in such a way that stopped their thinking and allowed them to see it differently, they would only continue to drive away great talent...

What happened next was one of the most beautiful transformations I have ever seen. This leader and I worked endlessly on beginning to end the aspects of what made them fearful of not giving feedback and being afraid of hurting their employees' feelings... and it came down to the fact that an awful leader once hurt them. It stayed with them their entire professional career.

Once we realized that experience happened in the past and in a similar way, they were hurting their employees, and they quickly began to change! All it took was a painful journey to realize that becoming complacent in an area they feared was allowing them to not perform to their best ability as a leader.

How many of you right now reading this have a similar fear? Maybe there is an area in your life that you know you need to work on, but for whatever reason, you continue to put it aside.

There may be a lack of development in your leadership, affecting the organization, but you might not realize it.

Whatever you just answered, I encourage you to ask yourself if you have allowed that area to become complacent by not dealing with it!

Lastly, it will probably hurt, be uncomfortable, and might even help you discover a new limit... but remember this.

Complacency becomes a mindset when the mind becomes complacent!