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Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.
Hey folks, welcome to the show. You’ve heard the old saying, you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. We all know that this is true, but I wonder if we have thought about it as deeply as we should. Have you ever thought about that in terms of your upbringing? What about your childhood? What about your relationships? Especially thinking those areas where there has been maybe dysfunction or toxicity, and in speaking of dysfunction and toxicity, let me say the old saying another way. You repeat what you don’t repair. Let me say that again. You repeat what you don’t repair. Now some of you may hear that and go, Nope, I’m totally not doing the things that happen. We’ll talk a little bit about that. The big thing here is I want you to be able to see some of the areas that if you don’t fix these things, then it’s affecting you in a negative way.
And hopefully you know, by now my heart is to help you in every way possible to be doing things that are helping you and that are healthy. So because we are in a broken world, there are imperfections no matter what. There’s always areas of toxicity, always somewhere somehow with us, with our friends, with our family, with the people we work with, with our leaders, with our team members, whatever it is. And these things are things that we have an opportunity to repair so that we don’t repeat them, right? And relatively, whether you had a healthy home or a broken home, you may have a lot of stuff to work on, right? But here’s the thing, I want you to understand, even folks that come from healthy backgrounds, because we are in a broken world, we tend to have things that we still need to fix.
Even the most loving of parents can still instill in us things that affect us negatively later on in life. Now you are not hearing me say, let me be very clear like I am every single time and next level life. We don’t make any victims and we don’t make any monsters. Our goal is to gain the greatest perspective so we can make the best decisions. So it is very possible that you could come from a healthy home or a healthy environment and still have things that are affecting decisions that you’re making today. So let me give you some examples in just everything, right? Toxicity in relationships, if you grew up with unhealthy conflict and fighting, if you grew up in a household where there was a lot of stress, a lot of fighting, a lot of conflict, then you probably still have unhealthy conflict. Now, especially if you never did the work to repair those areas.
Now it could be that the conflict is something that you are initiating. It could be that you fight, it could be that you create conflict. It could be the opposite. It could be you are so conflict averse that you will not face the things that you should do. You know that you don’t have healthy conflict. You’re afraid to face the conflict of whatever it is. That’s an area that we’ve got to fix for us, right? So that we can make us healthy. Or another example would be, um, maybe you grew up in a very controlling household or maybe it’s not even the household, but maybe somebody in your life was incredibly controlling and took control away from you. So maybe now you struggle when feeling that things are out of control, which is very common. Control can be a big piece for people either the, I can’t let things be out of control, so I must take control.
Or whenever I feel out of control, I make other unhealthy decisions. Maybe you resist getting close to people or on the other side, maybe you fear losing people so you really get close to them, whatever that is. That’s another example. Um, another one is, uh, you know, if you’ve ever heard somebody say, I am never going to be like my parents. You know, my dad and my mom or whatever they did. Now here’s the deal. If you’re feeling the need to say that they’re trying not to act as a way that you felt was a bad thing when you were growing up, and that’s an indicator that there’s something there that needs to be repaired. Either it is you’ve been letting correctly or maybe you’re seeing it incorrectly, or maybe they did stuff that you really shouldn’t be doing. Either way. If we don’t fix this piece, then what happens is, is we do what I call the pendulum swing.
And when we say we’re not going to be like them, instead of swinging down into the middle, which is healthy, we swing all the way to the other side, and we do the same thing from a different angle. If we have a controlling parent, then we say we’re not going to be controlling. But the thing is, the outcome of the controlling parent is that it causes a lot of dysfunction inside of the child, right? So instead we swing all the way over to the other side. And instead of being controlling, we are incredibly lenient. And then what happens is we ended up raising very entitled children who don’t know how to take care of themselves. So if you’ve ever experienced the, I’m not going to be like, well then there’s probably something there that we need to fix. Another thing would be if you grew up in a home where emotions weren’t handled in a healthy way, so may be you showing emotions wasn’t okay.
Maybe you experienced that now that, uh, you couldn’t share emotions at home. Um, because maybe, you know, your parents just wouldn’t allow it or call it out and called it bad. And so now you struggle with it. You know, maybe you get irritated when your kids are showing emotions and it’s not a bad thing, but you know, you’ve got the, you know, tell them to stop, you know, knock it off, stop feeling that way. You shouldn’t be crying about things and, you know, whatever that is. If the response, if you’re getting irritated or dismissive, you know, showing somebody that, uh, they can’t be emotional and your response is not equal to the situation, then there’s probably something that we need to fix, right? So maybe you had a parent who was emotionally exploding on a consistent basis and you felt the need to essentially parent them or to rescue them from their feelings.
Then guess what? That’s probably something we’ve got to fix because now and this part of your life, how are you responding if the response that you’re having is not equal to the situation? So, you know, if your kids get their feelings hurt and they’re trying to express that emotionally, but the response is, Nope, you don’t get to do that, then we may have a problem. So there’s just some examples. There’s four examples or so that, uh, could be things that you’re experiencing, um, from growing up or just living life that need to be fixed. If we don’t fix them again, if we don’t repair this stuff, then we’re going to tend to repeat it. Even if we do it from a different angle and convince ourselves that we’re not doing the same thing. So before we get deeper into today’s content, I want to tell you about something I love, a powerful two day event.
Next level Life is our two day personal discovery experience. It’s a one on one personalized event where we guide you through a process to help you discover your root system, to get unstuck in life and to discover what’s holding you back from freedom and peace. Imagine this, what if you could wake up every morning with a clear purpose? What would it look like to have healthier relationships with less conflict? Where would you be in a few months, a year, five years if you had clarity, purpose and peace? Probably a big difference from where you stand today. Now I know it’s possible because I’ve been where you are asking myself, is there more? There is and there is a better way and it starts with next level life. You can go to chrislocurto.com/discover to take the next step. Now, if you’re struggling with this contentment, regret, or not feeling good enough, which most of you are, if you’re filled with anxiety or your relationships or liking, don’t keep going through the same motions every single day.
Learn how to move past the things, robbing you of peace. Go to chrislocurto.com/discover and take the next step. So here is how we ended up repeating what we don’t repair. The first thing is that we seek what we know. Guys, I hate to say it, but so many times we will focus on what’s comfortable, what we know. Whatever dynamics were present in your home growing up, um, you’re probably gonna be naturally drawn to. It’s the thing, you know, when we are working with leaders on their leadership styles, when we’re working with leaders on how they treat people, um, how they lead people or how they don’t lead people, uh, what we discover is it’s what they were taught. So many leaders are stuck in the leadership crazy cycle. Why? Because it’s what they were taught. So when you look at you as an individual, there’s a really good chance that you’re going to gravitate towards the thing that was most comfortable for you.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that that’s a healthy thing as well. So if you come from let’s say a positive, healthy home, right? A healthy family, that cycle draws you towards positive attributes. That’s a great thing. What if you come from unhealthy habits? What if you come from an unhealthy family life? Then there’s a really good chance that you’re going to be drawn towards unhealthy things. And uh, the problem with that is it’s most likely because it’s something that’s familiar and we’re comfortable with it. So what we need to look out for is as adults, we have a tendency to repeat the patterns that we have experienced, even if it takes on different forms. So maybe you find yourself trying so hard to make your current spouse happy because that was, you feel that it is your responsibility. Listen to me, those of you who feel it’s your responsibility to make people happy, then you’re probably trying to do that with your spouse.
You’re probably trying to do that with your kids. Maybe it’s your team members, maybe it’s your leader. Maybe it’s you know, you’re the leader and it’s your team. You cannot be responsible for other people’s happiness. I know I just shocked the whole bunch of you out there-scared the daylights out of you because you’re going, well, what do I do with that? Listen, understand. It’s something that you’ve been trained to believe is correct and it is not. You need to discover that if you do not fix that, then it’s going to be something you do for the rest of your life. Another thing is maybe you’ve tried to bring peace and calm to your home and you still run yourself ragged trying to make sure every one around you is okay like 100% of the time and you can’t rest until they are. So that’s another thing where maybe you felt that responsibility when you were younger and so now you’re doing it everywhere in your life, right?
Or at least in your family. Maybe you tried to prove yourself to one of your parents or both your parents, or maybe your parents responded as though you were never good enough. You never did things well enough. Whatever that is, you are just never quite enough. So now you try even harder to prove yourself to the world or your current family. Guys, listen to me. There are teachers out there right now. There are people, so-called thought leaders that are preaching in. Ladies, listen to me. A lot of those are preaching to the women that you need to get up on a mountaintop and scream to the world who you are. No, you don’t. That is horrible teaching. Your worth is not in what the world thinks you are. Oh, I’m going to just, I’m going to go off on this. Guys, your worth is not in trying to prove yourself to everybody on this planet or the people who appear to be important.
That’s not your worth. Those of us with a personal faith. Your worth comes from God. It’s defined by him. You can find it throughout the whole Bible what your worth is. So quit trying to find your worth from man or quit trying to prove yourself to people. You’re wasting your time, right? It’s making you unhealthy. So if you came from something like that, we don’t repair this thing, then you’re going to do that or you’re going to fall for these bad belief systems that say that you got to get on the top of the mountain and scream to the world who you are. Go tell the world who you are. Oh my gosh, such a colossal waste of time. Um, maybe another one is maybe success in your household growing up meant accomplishing things and getting awards or getting the response that you didn’t do well enough because you didn’t accomplish things and you’re still chasing success to feel like you’re accepted and loved, that the more you accomplish, the more accepted and loved you’re going to be.
It’s just, again, just not true guys, all these things that I’m sharing with you, it’s not good stuff. If you don’t repair it, then you’re never out of it. You’ll continue to repeat it over and over and over again. You repeat what you don’t repair. Now, let me give a big gut punch to all of those who are parents out there. You’re perpetuating this to your own children. Okay? If this is something you’re struggling with, I know right now you might be saying, that’s not true, Chris. I’m doing everything I can, trust me. This is what we do. This is what we do for a living, right? We try to not do the same things that we experienced and unfortunately, like I say, that pendulum swing, we end up perpetuating it into our children. So if your child was trying to prove themselves, if your child was only getting worth from accomplishments and awards, if your child felt it was their responsibility to take care of everybody, if your child felt it was their responsibility to make people happy, what would you tell them?
Would you be like, yep, absolutely. That’s your job, sucker. Make it happen. Heck no, you wouldn’t. It would break your heart to watch your kid do that in many of you are absolutely seeing it and not knowing what to do about it right now. You see it happen with your children. We know because we help people in Next Level. I have to get rid of that junk. So understand this, you repeat what you don’t repair. So before we get into how to stop repeating these cycles, I want to tell you about something that is coming this spring. I’ve never seen a leader that’s had everything that they wanted. Out of thousands of leaders that I’ve coached most are probably a lot like you. You wish you saw greater productivity and less drama from your team that you didn’t spend your energy putting out fires, that you had more time to invest in your family and the things that you enjoy and you felt more equipped to lead your team to success.
The only thing that’s holding leaders back from the results they desire is having the right tools and you can get those tools at the Next Level Leadership Live Event. So if you’re young, old, new, experienced, struggling, or really successful, this event is for anyone who is ready to learn from 25 years of best practices that get proven results. It’s not about short term fixes. In three days I’m going to teach you how to have sustained revenue growth to generate greater productivity from your team and get immediate momentum toward the results that you want. It’s going to be detailed, practical in loaded with how-to’s from the lessons we’re teaching, our clients have seen an average of 46% increase in gross profit in one year’s time. That’s one year’s time. These clients run normal everyday businesses and your business can have the same level of success.
So if you’re ready to see those results, go to chrislocurto.com/events and get your tail to this event and invest in your leadership and your business. That’s chrislocurto.com/events I can’t wait to see you there. All right, before the break, I mentioned many times if you don’t repair it, you’ll continue to repeat it. So here are three steps you can take right now to start repairing. Okay? These are pieces you need to do just to get the start going. Trust me on this. This will help in a lot of ways. The first thing is identify your patterns. Now, this may be really difficult without outside help because a lot of people choose to deny their patterns, right? Denial is the glue that holds dysfunction together. Think about that, right? So if we are denying our patterns or if we can’t identify him, it’s going to be almost impossible for us to fix those.
So let’s make sure we identify the patterns. Get outside help if we can to do this. Number two, recognize your triggers in those patterns. Chris, what does it trigger? Something that causes us to respond in the pattern? So let me just pick something. Let’s say that somebody comes along and tells you that, uh, the work you’re doing needs help. Your leader comes to you and is like, Hey, help me to understand why this is the result of the project you’re working on. If immediately the question of a leader asking you to explain yourself causes you to go into heavy defense, causes you to feel out of control, causes you to feel not worthy. So instead of just helping them to understand the thing that you’re doing, you go into defense mode. Maybe you go into blaming others mode. You know, throwing other people under the bus, maybe you start diverting, deflecting from it.
If you feel any of those things or I mean there’s a whole ton of things you can experience in this specific situation. If the authority asking you a question for an explanation, not accusing, not ripping you apart, not talking down to you, not demeaning, you just asking for some perspective causes you to respond in a negative way. That’s going to be a trigger. It could be, I have an authority figure questioning me. There is your trigger. So you need to recognize what are the things that cause you to start going into what we would call, you know the patterns, what we would call surface level responses in Next Level Life. But what causes you to go into those specific patterns. Recognize that. Number three, do the work to discover the why behind the triggers. So some examples are you can see a counselor, do Next Level Life.
Get your butts in here so we can help you in Next Level Life. Join a recovery group like celebrate recovery. All of these can be great tools to help you discover the why. Now we also have a podcast that speaks more directly to this, so go back and listen to episode number 242 and we’re going to put a link in the show notes and all that kind of fun stuff. But this can help you to discover the why behind the triggers. Now it may sound like work and guess what? It should because it is what the alternative is to not change anything. Continue struggling with the same conflicts, continue struggling with relationships, continue having anxiety, continue being frustrated and the bad thing is passing that on to the next generation. So here’s the deal, folks, you are absolutely capable of stopping the patterns or of repairing.
Now, some of you may be thinking right now, and this is a thing that breaks my heart more than anything, Chris, that’s definitely for a lot of people. Maybe that’s probably even for my spouse or friends that I know, but you know, I’m not worth that. I don’t deserve that. Oh my gosh, that breaks my heart. I have heard that for years where people are stuck in a pattern, a broken belief system, a limiting belief system where they think they are not worth getting this stuff fixed, that they are not worth getting help seeing somebody to get this stuff repaired. Guys, it is a lie. It is an absolute lie. You are worth it. You are worth it. You are worth it. So get it done. Do not listen to that lie. Do not hold yourself back. Do not wait. It drives me nuts when I have folks that come in and they’re like, yeah, I’ve known for three years, I should come through Next Level Life now I believe God has amazing timing.
Let it be his timing. Don’t you hold it back, right? I’ve done that many times in my life. I can promise you that. So don’t hold yourself back from repairing these things and getting help. So usually being able to gain clarity on this stuff or getting wise, unbiased counsel does require a trained third party. So whether that’s next level life for a local counselor or somebody in your community church, get it done. Remember you repeat what you don’t repair and unfortunately, so will your family. Now we do have a PDF download for you, uh, on the three areas that we talked about and the action steps. You can get that right now by going to chrislocurto.com/347 that’s again, chrislocurto.com/347. But folks move out on this repair. You’re worth having a better quality of life. Your family is worth it as well. Your kids are worth it. God believes you’re worth it. So make the decision right now to do so. Well, folks, hopefully this has helped you today. Again, I thank you for joining me. It is a blessing that I get to do this and help. I hope it has served you well. I encourage you, please subscribe, rate and share the podcast so that we can help more people by them joining our community. And as always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.
