Start With A Win - Chaos

Episode Date: January 11, 2019

On this episode of the Start with a Win podcast, Adam outlines the six steps to dealing with chaos:Clear your mind. Take a deep breath and try to relax, which will prepare you to see the situation objectively.Assess the situation. Lift your head up from the situation right in front of you and look around. Remember that you have the capacity within yourself to find the solution.Revisit your goals. Ask yourself if this chaotic situation aligns with one of your goals; if it doesn’t, you should remove yourself from the situation. Apply your systems. Refer back to the processes you have prepared for this very moment. Maintain forward momentum by sticking to the plan.Execute. Don’t let fear paralyze you from taking action. Start chipping away to experience growth.Appreciate. Being grateful for your life will provide you with the motivation to execute, and executing will provide you with more motivation.Links:Mr. Rogers bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rogers Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/https://www.facebook.com/adamcontosREMAXCEO/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/

At top of the 12th floor of the RE-MAX World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With a Win with CEO Adam Kantos. And hello everybody, Adam Kantos here with RE-MAX and we are atop of the 12th floor at the lovely RE-MAX World Headquarters here in Denver, Colorado with me. Producer Mark, how are you? It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. I love it. It's a beautiful day for a neighbor. That's right. Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor, Mark? Sure, Adam. All right. Hey, that comes from somewhere. Yeah. I've heard that before growing up. Mr. Rogers. That's it. You know, the fun part.

I think most everybody who's listening to this has heard that before. Yeah, of course, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a good opening because did you know that Mr. Rogers was a war hero? You know, I had heard rumors that like the reason why he wore cardigans and stuff was because he was like tatted up like a beast. I don't know if that's the case, but I believe the guy has done some amazing things for our

country. Yeah, that's awesome. Not only has he helped mold the minds of the youth, he fought to protect our freedom. That's right. Amazing. That's awesome. That guy dealt with some chaos in his life. I bet he did. Yes.

How do you deal with chaos though? You know? I'm glad you asked because this episode is about dealing with chaos. What kind of chaos is, do you think that people deal with? I mean, what kind of stuff do you think that is a typical chaotic thing? I mean, you work with a lot of business leaders. You work with a lot of people who, who deal with chaos. What are some of the top chaoses? Well, a lot of chaos just stems from not functioning on a plan. Chaos is a fear response. And it's when you start to, you know, we can, essentially we can work on one project at a time. And when you start becoming overloaded, you receive a fear response in your brain because you start becoming defensive. You start becoming scared and you've got to break through that. And it could be anything

from, you know, if let's say you're a cashier and there's a line out the door and you start feel like, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed. Or it could be if you're sitting in traffic and you have to get to a meeting and you've got things that are pushing against your schedule. Could be in the real estate space. If you have, and frankly, in a real estate space, there are never any real estate transactions that are easy. There's always something chaotic going on, which is why our agents, our REMAX agents, they're the full-time professionals. They've dealt with this chaos over and over again. And it's interesting because you look at how they deal with the chaos of inspections going

sideways, funding issues. You might have multiple offers, but they're very challenging to deal with because they have a lot of different contingencies upon them. And it takes somebody that can deal with chaos to work their way through a business issue or business chaotic environment, if you will. And there are ways to do that. So I came from the first responder world. I used to be a police officer and we would deal with chaos all the time. Non-stop.

Yeah. And there are ways to do it. And it's actually uh when you figure out how to deal with it after the chaos is over it's kind of rewarding uh to an extent you get a little bit of a rush and you're like well that was that was chaotic but it was cool i i dealt with it i made it through it yeah so how do you how do you make it through it so mark i have six steps that I utilize for dealing with chaos. Okay. And I'll walk you through those six steps for dealing with chaos. And I'll give you an example that I used recently on dealing with chaos, personal situation. It was actually a life or death situation. It could have been if I didn't deal with it properly, but I'll walk you through that afterwards with these six steps. So let's dive into these. The first thing, when you have chaos, the first thing you need to do is clear your mind. You need to take a deep breath. You

need to just take a moment and relax and clear your mind so that you have the opportunity to actually see the situation for what it is instead of feeling overwhelmed by the appearance of the situation. Does that make sense? Totally. So for instance, if you have a lot of crazy business stuff going on and you just feel overwhelmed by it, the phone's ringing, there's somebody at the front desk, or you have a lot of people that are knocking on your door to your office, whatever it might be. You just got to take a deep breath and say, I'm going to eat this elephant one bite at

a time. I'm going to deal with this situation in order effectively, and we're going to make our way through it. So just clear your mind. And that leads to the second step, because you can't do the second step until you've cleared your mind. Second step, assess the situation. Now, let me give you an example of this.

In a chaotic environment, in a fear response environment, our bodies go into fear response mode. And part of that is we get tunnel vision on things. We get so hyper-focused on the problem that we don't see solutions. So a good example of how do you break tunnel vision is I've heard it put by some different special forces guys I've heard, and they say, get off your rifle. So in combat, you might be so focused looking down the sights of your gun that all you're seeing is what's down the sights of your gun. And what you got to do is lift your head up and look around and just understand what's going on around you

and see the circumstances as a whole instead of just this tiny point of vision that you have. Right. And that seems like it might bring some calmness to you and some clarity at the same time. Yes. Right. And that seems like it might bring some calmness to you and some clarity at the same time. Yes. Yeah. So, between clearing your mind and assessing the situation, you get to understand what you're truly dealing with, what you're truly looking at. And frankly, what you're truly looking at or dealing with, you have the solution to. There's a good chance that you have

been given that solution in life, or that's part of your systems and processes in your business, in your life, things like that. But somebody's told you how to deal with this before, but you just have to understand what you're dealing with. And that's these first two steps help you understand what you're dealing with. Okay? Make sense so far? That totally makes sense. Okay. So three, since we understand what we're dealing with, it's time to revisit your goals. Because what you're dealing with may or may not be one of your goals. And if it's not one of your goals, do you truly need to deal with it?

Right. Yeah. It's like, no, you don't. Exactly. If, you know, for instance, if you're, you know, you're driving in traffic and you start seeing all these road rage people and stuff like that, is that one of your goals? Did you have a goal today going out and getting in road rage?

No, you had a goal today to smile and wave at three people. Hello. So if that's not one of your goals, get out of it. Back out of it. If you're dealing with a vendor in your business and that vendor continues to engage and engage and engage and engage, and there's creating chaos because you're overwhelmed with everything else that's going on, and that vendor is not part of your day, your goals, say, I'm sorry, I have other goals I'm working on. I'm not going to deal with you about this.

Or I appreciate your time, but no thanks. Back out of it. Get out of it as quickly as possible if this doesn't have to do with one of your goals. Or, you know, obviously your welfare or something like that. You know, if it's a safety situation, you got to deal with it. But get out of it if it's not one of your goals. So revisit your goals. After you revisit your goals, apply your systems. The systems that you've created to achieve your goals. So now what we've done in this chaotic environment,

we focused away from the stuff we shouldn't be working on to the things that we should be working on. And now we're going to take and make forward momentum towards the things that we should be working on and accomplishing the things that we need to do. Does that make sense so far? We've backed out or we've understood the situation because we've cleared our brain, we've looked around, we've assessed it, we've backed out of the things we shouldn't be part

of, we focused on our goals. And now the question is, what do we need to do to accomplish those goals? Okay? To apply our systems. That leads us to the fifth piece execute apply those systems take and make forward movement towards those systems in a business executing on that might be prospecting for new clients going and contacting existing clients to to find out if they're a referral source or if they want to do more business. So if you've got past clients or something like that, you go out and you contact them, find out if they need your service or product at this time. No, no, they don't. Okay. Who do you know that might be interested in this that I can contact today? So now you're applying systems,

you're executing on that prospecting piece, or you're going to go out and find new customers for your business by executing on your prospecting system. So we've gone away from chaos and now we're into growth. Okay. See how that works? Yeah, totally. And then the sixth one, appreciate. Gratitude does amazing things to our brain and it continues to build fuel for those systems to execute so the execution and the gratitude kind of work hand in hand where the gratitude drives that execution yeah it just perpetuates it it does it does so let's walk through these real quick again i'll give you a great example yeah of one that i i dealt with here because it seems like sometimes you'd have to deal

with chaos in a not like a weak situation right right yeah i mean it's i actually dealt with chaos in a matter of minutes just that so it's but it's a good example of dealing with chaos so um the six steps to dealing with chaos first clear your mind two assess the situation, revisit your goals. Four, apply your systems to achieve those goals. Five, execute. And you're executing on the activities in those systems. And then six, appreciate and show gratitude.

Okay? So you basically have turned a bad situation into one that you're expressing gratitude and you're enjoying, and now you're propelling forward. Well, I think it looks like when you apply these steps, especially to business, that all of a sudden you're creating like a machine. That's it.

Right? Yeah, it's interesting. When you build steps into something, you give yourself the ability to accomplish it. But if you're stuck in the chaos and you never clear your mind, you're stuck in the chaos. Right. And as we know, a lot of times in life, the chaos continues to get worse and worse and worse. And it turns into panic.

Now, I could have faced panic in this situation. So over Thanksgiving recently, I went scuba diving with my family. It's their first time in the ocean, okay? I mean, they've done their open water in a controlled environment, open water scuba training, stuff like that. And I'm down there with my wife and my children, a dive master, of course, and we're scuba diving. This is their first dive in the ocean.

So I'm concerned about them, making sure everything's good to go with them. I've got lots of dives under my belt and I had a mask problem. We're down at probably about 60 feet, I think, and my mask floods completely. I tried to clear it, it flooded more, tried to clear it, it flooded completely. And I'm sitting there going, okay, I've got my eyes closed. My family's out doing something near me. I don't know what, and I can't see anything. So first thing that comes to mind is, oh man, how do I deal with this? Now, when you're, when you panic underwater, your, your first instinct is to go to the surface, but from 60 feet to the surface, that could kill you.

Your head could explode. You could get the bends. You could, I mean, it's just, it's, that could kill you. Your head could explode. You could get the bends. You could, I mean, it could be bad. Yeah. Okay, really bad. So I'm down there and I remember my training, which is, okay, if it doesn't work, fix it, especially at this point. So I open my eyes and you can see blurry underwater. Opening your eyes in the ocean, by the way, does not hurt.

It's, you know, the saltwater, it's strange. It's a, you know, the saltwater it's, it's strange. It's just like being in a swimming pool. Yeah. It's like being in a swimming pool. Yeah. But so I opened my eyes, I take off my mask and I kind of felt my way around the mask and I'm like, Oh, I think I loosened my mask straps somehow must've bumped it with something. And so I, I tightened it up a little bit, put it on and I cleared it. And so the process itself though was not as easy as I'm describing. I mean, my heart's pounding. I'm going, what's going on with my family? I hope I'm not going up right now.

Water's flooding into your mask. Yeah, you're trying to breathe through your mouth and go, okay, don't breathe through your nose. You're not supposed to do your mouth and go, okay, don't breathe through your nose. You're not supposed to do that underwater. It's bad. And so I took it off. I put it back on and I cleared it a couple times and I actually got it to clear. And then I took a deep breath and I expressed gratitude towards myself.

I'm like, thank goodness I'm doing okay. Everything looks good. I look at my wife. She's sitting there staring at me underwater. She has no idea what's going on. Yeah. She gives me the, are you okay signal? You know, like the little circle on the three fingers.

And I said, yes. And I did the hand signal for my mask flooded. And she shakes her head and then off we go. And I thought to myself, okay, my heart's pounding. I need to not use up all my air stuff like that so i just kind of relax again yeah be grateful it puts you back in a good place and then i went and enjoyed the rest of the dive with my family so you went through these six steps when you're underwater yeah trying to fix a chaotic situation that's what you got to do instead of panicking and try to squish you

know swim to the top you took a deep breath, focused yourself, you assess the situation. Right, right. Yeah. Break your tunnel vision. Yeah. Instead of freaking out over the fact I have a flooded mask, go, what do I need to do to fix it?

That's how life is. It's like driving on ice. We live in Colorado. It gets icy here. People who don't live where there's ice, if you ever try to drive on it. First time you're headed towards a stop sign on black ice and you push on the brakes and nothing happens and you're going, uh-oh,

there's an intersection with cars going by in front of me. You got to figure out what to do. Yeah. How do you deal with that situation? Where's their traction? Where's their an exit from where I'm at? Instead of just going, oh, I'm headed towards this intersection.

I'm going to run into somebody or run into a stop sign or whatever. You need to make a decision. What are you going to do? Take your foot off the brakes and steer around the situation because a car generally, a lot of times, still steers. Extreme icy conditions, it won't. But for the most part, you can do something with it. Yeah. Pull the e-brake and crank the wheel. Spin down the hill. Yeah. There's Mark. Woo-hoo!

But it's just another chaotic situation, potentially. Business. Chaos in business. Just clear your mind. What are your goals? How do I accomplish those goals? And execute. And then be grateful.

Yeah. When it seems, too to that the more that you do this, the less chaotic your life will be. And the more you'll understand and learn how to deal with chaos. So it won't affect you as much, you know, you'll be able to course correct a lot quicker. Right. Exactly. I mean, you look at first responders, you look at military people, they get in a really, really bad situation that for most people would be extraordinarily chaotic. And they're calm and cool and collected. That's because they've trained their brain to go through these steps and deal with the situation instead of letting the chaos overwhelm them and paralyze their thought process. So that's how we deal with chaos, Mark.

I love that. I think that's really relevant and something that people can deal with and learn from on a regular basis. And it's something that it seems like you could apply in all sorts of situations. Absolutely. And business dealings to life dealings, you got to have a process for dealing with challenging,

frustrating, chaotic situations. Those are the six steps. Awesome. Thanks, Adam. You bet. Those are the six steps. Awesome. Thanks, Adam. You bet. And thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We will catch you next time from Remax World Headquarters here in Denver, Colorado on Start With A Win.

Thank you so much for joining us today. Make sure to head over to startwithawin.com to get more great content. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow Adam on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. And remember, start with a win.