632 | It Starts With You: The Mindset Shift Every Leader Needs

Before you can lead others with clarity and confidence, you've got to lead yourself. Today we're digging into the mindset shift. Every leader needs to grow a healthy business and a stronger team. That is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show, where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are.

Recently, I was talking with one of our clients, someone who's become a friend over the years.

So many of our clients have become very close to us, and he said something that really stuck with me. His team had just gone through one of our virtual trainings on personality styles, and here's what he told us.

He said the virtual training was an amazing event. We learned as a team about personality styles and it's completely changed how we communicate now.

Now our team members are referencing what they learned almost daily, and it's become second nature. And that is the great Amit Malla, vice president at Prime Security.

He's not just sharing a win. He's showing what happens when you decide to lead yourself first. Let me say that again. When you as an individual, individual, leader, parent, business owner, whatever, when you decide to lead you first.

That mindset shift is what today's episode is all about.

So we're going to get into five key points that are going to help you to recognize how to lead you first, so that you can build a stronger team, so that you could get people thinking differently.

Your Business Mirrors Your Beliefs (00:01:57)

So the first key point is that your business mirrors your beliefs or your team mirrors your beliefs. So if you believe that you have to do everything all yourself.

And there's so many leaders that struggle with this concept of delegating because they don't know how to delegate properly.

And they believe everything has to come through them. And, you know, they don't want to lose.

They don't want to lose control of something or let go of control of something because of fear, fear of failure, fear that this is going to come back on them and it's just going to, you know, they're going to have to do it again and it's going to be a waste of time and so many different reasons.

Here's the deal. If you believe that everything has to rely on you, then you're going to create a team that relies on you.

If you believe people can't be trusted, then you will absolutely micromanage that team. If everybody has to come through you, you are the bottleneck.

Now, again, you may believe you have great reasons for why so many things have to come to you. Now, I can tell you some crappy reasons, some bad reasons are because it's identity for you.

You know, making people come to you gives you worth. So in essence, what you end up doing is you give a person a fish instead of teaching a person how to fish, right?

So, so instead of helping somebody be able to solve things on their own, you become the bottleneck. They must come through you. It slows down productivity, it slows down growth, it definitely drops morale.

And goodness gracious, it really tanks any individual on your team.

It tanks their ability to grow because in their mind, there's a cap, there's a lid. This is as far as I can go. Everything else has to go through the leader.

So think of like, you know, maybe a client believed that their team or team members couldn't take on more responsibility. If you dig in, what you might discover is that's not the issue. It's not that they can't take on more responsibility.

It's that as a leader, you haven't trained them, you haven't trusted them. Now, obviously I'm always going to be somebody who says train first. You know, don't just trust somebody can do something.

Put accountability in there. You know, gain quality perspective, make sure that they have the ability to do this, they have the capacity to do this, they have the time to do this, they have the tools to do this.

Train them properly. And then that's where you start to let out some of the rope on the trust piece.

When you get to a place of truly being able to trust that they know exactly what they're doing, then you can let out most of the rope. I don't ever let it all out, but let's let out most, right?

That's the goal. At least that's the, that should be the goal is getting to the place where you can do that.

The key is you have to get honest about what you believe to be true and whether or not it's helping or hurting your leadership. If you believe people on your team can't do stuff, then I have a really big question for you.

Why are they on your team? Why did you hire them? Why are they still on your team? Why haven't you fixed that, done something about it?

Why are they there? If you believe that they can't do bigger, better things, the problem is they haven't been trained to do so. Or the problem is you're gaining too much worth from this and too much identity.

The sooner you realize you have greater worth to your team and your business. As you elevate up, that's when you will start to really look at how do I delegate properly?

How do I get stuff off of my plate?

Language Reveals Mindset (00:05:41)

Key point number two, language reveals mindset. So if you have phrases like, well, I guess I have to or they're never going to get it. These are mindset red flags.

These are things that should help you to understand the words that just came out of your mouth. It's so fun. During Next-Level Life or StratPlan or just working with leaders, when they're coming for growth, they're coming to learn and grow.

And they will say phrases and then we'll just repeat them back. And when they hear, inevitably what they'll say is, well, it sounds really stupid when you say it that way.

It's like, well, it's the same thing you just said. It's a red flag. It's something that somebody gets to hear themselves and go, oh, my gosh, I just said that. That is something I believe. That is something I'm thinking now.

To the person who is massively insecure, that's the last thing they want to hear. To the person whose identity is wrapped up and their worth is wrapped up in what they do and, you know, that's all who they are, that's the last thing they want to hear.

They don't want to hear those things. They want to hear that what their. Their ideas are, right, and that they're good people.

But for the rest of us out here who are like, no, I want to grow. I want to be better. If I've got something wrong, I want to fix it. If I can level up, I want to level up.

Then hearing ourselves as we say things that are literally, you know, limiting beliefs is what they are, then that helps. By hearing that, that helps us to change. It helps us to come to understanding.

It helps us to get to a place of finding a fix, and then it helps us to change. Like Amit said, the team is now taking what they learned and they are using it every day.

They're reflecting on it every single day. They're bringing that to life, right? They're not sitting there going, oh, no, I was right before this. No, I didn't need this information. No, I do everything right.

And, you know, it's everybody else who's messed up, right? Instead, they're taking that information and changing it, right? They're using it every day.

So for us in coaching, you know, we often have leaders reframe statements like, well, I have to handle everything. And we'll say, hey, listen, change that.

How about you say it this way? I choose to equip my team to solve problems. So it helps them to go, hey, I've got a problem here.

Instead of thinking I have to handle everything, I have to take care of everything, we help them get to this place of going, wait a second, I don't have to handle everything.

What I need to do is I need to choose to help my team handle it. And if I can do that, then I can keep this off of my plate. I can make my team better. They can take on bigger, better things.

They can grow. Everything becomes better at that point, right? So helping people to reframe, Start reframing some of the things you hear you say.

Now, I don't know if you are a parent, if you've ever done this with a child, but I do it all the time.

You know, whenever our youngest is saying something like that or has victim mentality or whatever, I'll just repeat it or I'll say, hey, this is what you're saying, but wouldn't it be better if this is what you were thinking and I'll help her to make different decisions?

So listen to your words. They tell you what you really believe. They are also fantastic if you're listening to what you're saying. I know that sounds like, well, how can I not listen?

Because you're so focused on saying something that you're not paying attention to what you're saying. If you will listen to what you're saying, then you'll be amazed at how they can turn into big red flags and help you to adjust.

Key point number three. And you know, again, we all struggle with all these, right? But it's what we do with them that matters.

Reaction vs. Response (00:09:41)

Key point number three is reaction versus response. Now, when your mindset is unhealthy, then you will have a tendency to just react emotionally.

When it's mature and grounded, then you're going to respond with wisdom.

But over and over, and I will tell you, I am seeing this, gosh, in just great amounts over the last decade that the emotional response, even in adult mature people has been growing, right?

Which means that we're moving in a direction of immaturity. If that's how we're responding, that means that we're not emotionally intelligent, right? Or at least maybe we were, but we're struggling with something right now.

Not saying that people don't have struggles. I'm not saying that people don't have problems. What I'm saying Is this how you approach it matters? It drives me crazy. I mean crazy when people consistently.

And what I mean by that is that they don't learn and shift, they don't learn and change when people consistently respond emotionally, that they don't stop and try and process logically. Now there's a whole lot of reasons behind that.

We don't have enough time to get into everything. But I will tell you quite often. And people just don't get this. It doesn't matter how many times I say it, people don't get this.

What you're putting in your body is affecting your emotions. I promise you, the roller coaster your hormones are going on when you're putting in sugar and crap and processed foods, that is affecting how you respond.

It is just, it's a must to understand if you will choose a clean. And I have people tell me all the time, oh Chris, I eat clean. We don't have sugar and processed foods and all that kind of stuff.

And then you see what they eat and it's literally, it's literally the things that they say that they don't eat.

I used to have a team member who used to talk about how clean he eats all the time and he would always bring these microwavable, horrid, crappy foods, throw them in the microwave, nuke them and eat those and talk about how clean he eats.

The issue here is not being aware. You may believe that you're eating incredibly clean.

And yet if we actually got down to it and opened up your pantry and saw the things that you eat and the things that you don't think are a big deal, you might be shocked at how much it's affecting you.

So important thing, another thing, if you're not dealing with emotional struggles that you've experienced, maybe traumatic experiences, maybe there's been a lot of failure that you've.

You felt that you are the cause of lately. Maybe you're struggling with relationships. Any of these things can literally hold you back from responding. Emotionally mature, right?

These can all affect you. I will tell you it is. I'm a pretty long suffering person. I'm also somebody who's able to handle a ton of stress, especially you know, in the moment or over decently long periods of time.

But I have been, I've had a lot of compound stress over the last couple of years.

And I mean just stupid stuff, you know, evil people doing evil things and non evil people having issues that, that affect me greatly and all kinds of stuff.

And I've always been somebody that has been able to handle that. And I've been able to handle all of this stuff too, but it has worn on me. It is something that has affected me. Where I have found that I need breaks, where I have to get away.

My wife recognizes this. She recognizes it in herself, usually faster and. And then she will recognize that I need it as well.

That we need time of just, okay, we gotta stop, go somewhere, relax, not focus on all the problems, issues or even things that aren't problems, running a successful business or multiple businesses and how much that's adding to it, right?

That's one of the amazing things, is that I have a lot of incredible stuff going on in my life at the same time, which is stressful as well.

Not a bad stress, but guess what? Your body doesn't recognize the difference between good and bad stress, right? It sees stress as stress and then it responds.

So if you have things going on in your life as well, and I will tell you this, if you have stressors going on, you're probably eating pretty crappily, right?

Maybe putting bad foods, bad drinks, bad stuff into your body. Those are things that could really cause you to react emotionally.

All of that to say, if you will pause and ask the question instead of reacting, what if you will respond differently?

What if you stop and instead of just reacting to a situation, instead of bringing drama to drama, you know, compounding drama, whatever, what if you just stop and ask the question, what's really going on here?

What's really happening? What is the information that I need to understand or what's, you know, whatever.

What if you spent time really understanding what's going on instead of reacting? Then you might find that emotionally you can handle the situation much better.

That you don't have to freak out, that you don't have to react with victim mentality, with anything like that. So things I want you to understand on this, if you master your inner world, then it will lead to you being able to calm the chaos.

And folks, there's nothing better than being able to calm chaos, right? I mean, I hate chaos. I just hate it. I've just been really good at helping people to comment, to overcome it, to deal with it.

Small Shifts Make Big Impacts (00:16:13)

Key point number four, small shifts. Small shifts make big impacts. Now I'm reiterating small because I am massively guilty of. But I can do big. I'm somebody who's like, yeah, but I can do more than that.

Yeah, but I can do. This is something that, you know, I've had a phenomenal health journey over the last 20 plus years. Having to deal with lead and getting heavy metals out of my system and all these different things.

And because I've done so much and because I am somebody who has the mindset of, let's do the max that we can to solve the problem, do everything we can.

That has me sometimes in a position when I'm not supposed to do more than the small amount. I've got a health coach I've been working with lately who on a separate.

This is my 14 billionth heavy metal lead detox that I'm on. And as we've walked through this process, I'm going after, well, here's the process. I can do all of this. And it's like, no, no, no, we don't want you to do all of it.

What do you mean? We want you to do this amount. Yeah, but I can do more than that. But we don't want you to. But I can handle it. But we don't want you to.

It took like three different times for me to go, oh, so what you're saying is that more isn't better? Yes, that's correct. Okay, well, say it that way. Tell me that part, right? Tell me that more isn't better.

And I can get there. But it took a couple of tries of me going, yes, but I can do more. Until I understood what they were saying. More isn't better.

Yes, you can do more. And you're the type of person that can take on stuff and do things and yada, yada, yada, but that doesn't mean that it's a good thing. So I am super, super guilty of this, right?

So as I say this, I want you to understand you don't have to overhaul your entire life. I don't want you to. I want you to make one the number one o n e one mindset shift.

Like perhaps viewing mistakes as lessons, as feedback, as stuff that can help you to learn, stuff that can help you to change, right?

You can change how you lead if you stop looking at mistakes as colossal failure, if you stop losing worth when you make mistakes.

And again, I'm somebody who has had to battle that my entire life. That fear of failure that, oh, I'm a horrible person because I made mistakes, but I'm somebody who has battled it for quite some time and used our tools to get out of it.

So that when I make mistakes, I go after it. Realistically, I try to. I'm not saying that I don't have that emotional spike in the beginning.

What I'm saying is I work my butt off to try and overcome that. Be emotionally intelligent, get past my emotions. I'm not a victim here. This is a mistake, it's an issue.

This is something that's fixable. So change the way you're looking at it and solve it. Just solve it, right?

So one mindset shift I want you to start working on this week, right now, today, while we're talking, stop viewing mistakes as fatal failure and start viewing them as feedback and lessons that can teach you how to not make that mistake again.

Another big piece to that is to get rid of the guilt and shame of failure, right? We have incredible amounts of folks that come through, us included, who have struggled with seeing failure as shameful, right?

As I'm a horrible person. When you can change that mindset, failure is going to happen. It's inevitable. You're going to fail at something, at some point somewhere, you're going to fail. Start seeing it as coaching fuel to you, right?

Start using that failure to develop you faster. And then leader, parent, business owner, start using that as fuel to coach others. Help others see failure as okay as long as we do something about it.

You've heard me say we've got our five step process. We what happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? How do we fix it? How do we make sure it never happens again, right?

Solve the problem. Don't sit there in victim mentality, don't hide it, don't lose worth. Something happened, fix it. And then when we get past number five, move on, Move on.

Go on from there. Don't stay focused on it. Do the steps and fix it. Now.

If you don't do step number five and you haven't gotten to quality perspective on this, then you're probably going to come back and have to fix this thing again and again and again and again.

And that's when it becomes a fire and you become a professional firefighter. Let's not get there. Let's solve the problems and then teach other people how to do it as well.

So what am I saying? Don't aim for perfection. You, you're not going to get there. You're never going to get there. Those are my high Cs out there with high theoretical. You're never going to be perfect, get over it.

But you can be great and you can get so far past where you currently are. Don't aim for perfection, aim for progress. Because progress changes your world.

And if you just start small, you'll be amazed at how in a period of time you, you can start doing two things. Two mind shift changes. Change two things in your life at the same time, and so on and so forth.

If You Want Change, Go First (00:22:38)

Key point number five, if you want change, go first. You do it. Your team reflects you. Leader. You want accountability. Be accountable. You want growth, grow. First, you do something about this.

You need to recognize that your team is a reflection of you. I don't care if you're a low level leader, mid level leader, high level leader, business owner.

Those that you are leading reflect you. So if you're not changing, guess what?

They're most likely not going to change either. Why would they? So find a way to start changing you first. So think of a business owner who's committed 10 minutes, 10 minutes of intentional learning each day.

What are they going to see after 90 days? What kind of change are they going to experience after 90 days? A lot. A good amount. So start asking yourself, what would it look like if I just committed to 10 minutes today to change something, to learn.

Intentionally learn something today, then that means in 90 days, that's a whole lot of learning. Hopefully I've grown now. Pick something that's going to be super beneficial to you.

Don't just pick something, you know, sloppy or something that just doesn't really matter. Pick something that's going to help you change as a leader.

If you're sitting on here listening to this and you're a parent, and maybe you're a stay at home mom or dad, or you know, you're a youth, whatever, it doesn't have to be about leadership.

Apply it to where you are in your life. Ten minutes every day, intentionally learning and see what happens. But leaders understand you set the tone always.

Action Items (00:24:39)

So I've got some action items for you and some additional resources. First thing, you gotta identify one belief that might be limiting your leadership. Do that today.

Sit down, write that down. Come up with something that you absolutely can point to that is limiting your leadership.

Second thing, reframe it into a healthier truth. What is a healthier version of that? Limiting belief. Third thing, practice saying the new truth, the healthier truth, out loud whenever the old truth shows up.

Additional Resources (00:25:15)

So things you need to do, Episode 209 | How To Lead Yourself, Starting with Mindset.

This is a great episode that is teaching you that your success and leadership starts with growing you. And it starts with what you're telling yourself right now.

We have a great, great guest, Bruce Van Horn. He and I dive into what he calls restoring. Yes, that's exactly how it sounds. Restoring for individuals and leaders.

Also, if you're ready to build a team that mirrors your best leadership qualities without having to travel to a seminar somewhere. Our virtual team training helps you and your team upgrade communication, upgrade ownership, execution, and all of it is in real time.

So from wherever you are, it doesn't matter. There is a link in the show notes, there is a link to our team training. Click on that and just get the information.

You will be blown away how much it will help your team grow, how much it will give them capacity, greater execution, greater productivity, greater bottom line. It will affect so much on a daily basis.

Conclusion (00:26:29)

So understand this.

You don't need a title or a stage to lead powerfully. You just need to start right where you are and you need to get the right tools.

Next week, we're diving into what it really means to take ownership on your leadership and your life. So folks, that's all the time that we have for today.

I hope this has helped you immensely. As always, we want you to take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life and join us on the next episode.