The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - When Your Plan Gets Punched in the Mouth

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

What do you do when your perfect plan falls apart?In this episode, When Your Plan Gets Punched in the Mouth, I share how the concepts of tension and compression from Jiu-Jitsu can help you lead through pressure, adapt in real time, and still move forward.Whether you’re leading a project, managing a team, or showing up at home, you’ll learn how to adjust without losing momentum.Hope ignites. Plans guide. Action transforms.

Welcome back to the People Process Progress Podcast. I'm Kevin Pennell. Today I wanna connect two ideas that hit me in very different places. One came from a recent jujitsu class and the other from a moment when a well thought out plan just fell apart. I'm talking about tension and compression

and how they show up not just in martial arts, but in leadership and parenting and marriage and in life. We'll also tie it to something I've talked about before, that moment when your plan gets punched in the mouth. But first, please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum, and let's get started with the People Process Progress Podcast. In Jiu Jitsu this morning, we trained on two core principles, tension and compression. Compression is when you flatten your opponent, you control their movement, you're removing space so that they can't escape or move freely.

Tension is when you stretch their body out, you create openings, you disrupt their balance. As I worked with the technique, one, I got tired because it's Jiu Jitsu, but it also clicked that this goes beyond jujitsu to me. And that's what I try and do is see lessons in other areas of my life when I'm working on one area like jujitsu. So how does this work in business and team leadership and being a husband and a father? And the same idea is applied to how we lead people and how we handle pressure in the real world.

So sometimes in your life, you need compression, not in a negative way but a stabilizing way. And I talked about this before and posted about when I got a tough assignment it helped pull me out of a tough spot in my life. Because sometimes we're scattered or off track, right? And we need support or our team members need support, they need clear expectations. Maybe use some structure to help get them refocused because other areas of their life or maybe your life just feel like a whirlwind. And sometimes we need tension. Often we need tension, I think, that helps people grow, right? And get unstuck and feel a little discomfort to break through. That's what we need as humans to get better, not just to be comfortable and do the things we do all the time

or not push yourself hard on a run or on a roll or in a meeting, it can mean letting go as a leader. It can be stepping back or challenging the folks that you have to take on something new. So as that concept settled in for me, as I was thinking about in Jiu Jitsu and we learned about these techniques and I thought about it in business and in leadership, it brought me right back to another thing

that keeps popping up. And those times are when this excellent plan that's laid out nicely that shows we're gonna do this, this and that, or we're gonna have this backlog and it's gonna be so clean, gets punched right in the mouth. And you've probably heard a quote from Mike Tyson that says everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

And that's so true, right? I lived that in projects and leadership and in life, and you probably have too. You have a kickoff, you make the charter, the schedule, the team, everything looks awesome. And then something unexpected happens. A resource leaves that you're dependent on. A sponsor backs out. You lose momentum or run into something personal that knocks your socks off.

I know that happened to me. It happened to you all. And in those moments, pressure shows up fast because everyone's looking at you, especially if you're a project manager, a team leader, a leader of any kind. And sometimes it's too much tension. Sometimes you lose it. Sometimes you have a panic attack like I did.

You've stretched the team too thin. Sometimes you make burnout. You didn't give them enough room to reset or restart. And people and things start snapping. Other times, maybe it's too much compression. You're holding everything too tightly. You're mic too much compression. You're holding everything too tightly. You're micromanaging. You're making all the decisions. You're talking instead of listening more. You over-structure and people can't breathe. But here's an interesting

thing. Sometimes tension and compression are not just the cause of the problem, they're also part of the solution. And it depends on how and when you apply them. This is where the leadership angle comes in. So let's take this outside of the gym, whether it's Jiu Jitsu, your garage gym, your whatever gym you go to, and off the Gantt chart, and talk about how in leadership, we're always applying some kind of pressure, right?

Whether it's on a team member, a peer, or ourselves, we're either compressing or creating tension. So compression looks like, here's some clarity, here's the boundaries, here's the. So compression looks like, here's some clarity, here's the boundaries, here's the guidance. Tension is, here's some space, here's some challenge, here's some trust. The skill that I've found most valuable and helpful for me and I believe for my teams is what's needed in that moment.

Because every moment's not the same, right? That takes presence, it takes awareness. And if someone on your team has been floundering and not showing up the way they used to, they might need a little compression actually to help them narrow their focus, to help them reestablish their routines, to clear the noise,

to give them objective and honest feedback. And if someone else is doing solid work, but they seem bored or disengaged, maybe we need to have them stretch them a little bit, give them a little tension, a new challenge, let them lead something or take a risk in something they're not comfortable with. At home, same thing, right? As a parent, and I've talked about this with my oldest son, but I do it with my 14 and 12

year old, I see this with them. One might need to lean in with reminders and help them reset, and the other one might need space because they want to just try and let them fail and let them figure it out. And I do that with a balance of safety. Can't take the emergency manager and the corpsman out of this guy. And the same in marriage, right? Sometimes our partner needs us to show up

and take something off their shoulders. Marriage isn't 50-50, it fluctuates over and over again. Me more, her more, back and forth. Sometimes they just need quiet or not to be told what to do. They need space to sort through their own thoughts or they want us to take that on. But you got to have that conversation. We usually get it wrong though when we default to our natural mode, right?

Sometimes when we were someone who likes to control or well, this is how I've done it. So I know it works for everybody else, right? You probably compress too often and I've done this before. If you like freedom and creativity, maybe you stretch too far and miss when someone needs structure. So, we have to read the moment. Again, the moment defines it. It can't be a blanket application and just say, I'm going to do this here and this there

because everyone's different and every movement is different. So, what can we do right now? So, here's what I've been trying to do for years. I stop and ask myself a few simple questions when I feel the tension rising or something feels off or these are things that I would suggest based on what I've learned from doing it wrong and doing it right. One, does this person need support or space? I've mentioned this, help handle it here, because sometimes they need you right there

with them, right? Especially if you're anxious, you're nervous about it, it helps to give reinforcements. Sometimes they need you to back up because you're not letting them do their job, letting them answer, letting them be creative. So does a person need support or space? Support or space? Am I grounding them or limiting them is the second question? Am I bringing clarity and calm

or am I putting a lid on their potential by constantly telling them what they have to do? If someone that works for you constantly has to say, oh, I have to wait and ask this person, you're not letting them live up to their potential. The third thing is this a time for clarity or for challenge, right? So some, remember compression, other tension,

some just presence. So am I gonna get clarity by compressing you a little bit? Am I gonna challenge you with some tension or just be there? The fourth action we can take right now is to consider, does this project need a shift and approach? Can we pivot from full execution? We got all the resources.

It's a Sunday day. Everything's going to go well to a partial solution that still meets the need, like tiers. Can we do 100%? What about 75%, 50%, 25% of the value now and build from there? You can do this for home projects, right? You can do this project your kids are doing for school, certainly the old project management stuff that we're talking about a lot here,

but have those backup plans. Know that here's what we wanna do, full tilt, full implementation, but here's what we could do with three quarters of that or half of that or a quarter of that. The fifth thing is, and I've talked about this in previous episodes, so search the podcast for pace planning and that's primary, alternate, thing is, and I've talked about this in previous episodes, so search the podcast

for pace planning and that's primary, alternate, contingency, and emergency. This goes along with the percentage, but it's really geared towards kind of specific plans and each of those similar though, right? If a current plan gets punched in the mouth, which happens very often, do we have a path to keep moving forward? Even if it's slower or smaller or it's a different outcome slightly, but it still makes something safer or more efficient. So in review, here's things to consider that I would prompt you to consider. One, does a person need support or space?

Two, are we grounding them or limiting them? Three, is this a time for clarity or for challenge? Four, does the project need to shift in approach? And five, do we have a pace plan for whatever it is we're trying to do, whether it's at work or at home? And they're not easy questions. For sure they're not because a lot of them have to do with money, time, resources, messing up people's dreams or desires that they want to do. But we have to be objective and open about it. Right? If we can slow down enough to ask them, then the answers usually show up. Right? The more we practice, the better we get. So I would say do the fractional versions

and the pace planning with each project, personal and professional. And the other thing is just consider, do I need to lean in more or back up is kind of a summary of the first three. So for me, the reality is, and probably like many of you, I still mess up plenty of times. I've pressed it when I should have pulled back,

I've let go when I should have leaned in, I've misread the moment plenty of times. But I'm trying to get better. The gym helps, Jiu Jitsu teaches me, right? Too much pressure in the wrong direction creates resistance. When there's new folks and you give them tons of pressure, it freaks them out and I don't want somebody to quit. Or maybe I'm not giving enough pressure

and I'm going with someone that's better and they flip me over, right? It's a similar thing, but not a combat sport when you're out there with your kids or with a coworker or something like that. So overall to me, it's not about ever getting punched in the mouth even though in reality we don't really want that, but it's about what you can do after, what you've built yourself up to do.

Do you freeze? Do you push harder? Do you adjust? Do you pause long enough to ask what kind of pressure is needed? How should I respond? What's the right path? Because this is where the growth happens. This is where it happens. And the harder times, the easy times are easy. That's why they're called easy times, duh. Right, so here's what I'm going to leave you with

today and what I'll take with me as well. The next time your plan starts to unravel, pause, take a breath and ask, where's the pressure coming from? Is it me? Am I causing it? Am I reacting to it? Am I learning from it? Right? Is that a moment to compress and stabilize or stretch and grow? And more importantly, how do I show up for my team, my family, and myself? So this week try applying this mindset to one relationship. Could be someone you lead, partner at home, or even just how you talk it to yourself because self-talk matters. Ask if that person or project needs compression or attention and act from there. Let me know

how it goes. I'd love to hear from you. I'm at PanellKG, P-N-N-E-L-L-K-G on Instagram and the X or the Twitters for us old school folks. I am on LinkedIn, Kevin Panell. I also have a YouTube channel, Panell5 Fitness. You can listen to this podcast. If this was helpful, share it. Share this episode. You can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, all the big players, and go to PeopleProcessProgress.com for your definitive source. Take a survey, figure out what your pillars are. Remember there's seven pillars, ownership, mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep and faith.

Figure out what you've got to work on. Maybe you already know, maybe you just want to reiterate it. Then consider buying the Stability Equation on Amazon. It's a book I put together where I share my project, my compression, my attention I applied to myself to help get better in a super stressful time. Remember it's hope that ignites, it's plans that guide our teams, and action that transforms us and the world around us. Thank you everybody for being here. We'll see you next time and Godspeed.