I Suck! What Happens When Reality Strikes?

What do you do when leadership punches you in the gut—and you feel like you’ve totally failed?

In this raw and honest episode, Zach Hensrude shares what it’s like to hit that wall of self-doubt and disappointment, when the only words in your head are, “I suck.” Instead of sugarcoating it, Zach walks through a powerful 4-step reflection process his coach taught him that reframes failure and turns tough moments into leadership growth:

1. Write down the facts.
2. Ask yourself: How do I feel?
3. Challenge: Is that feeling even true?
4. Clarify: What outcome did I actually want?

This is the episode every leader needs—not when everything’s going right, but when it all feels like it’s falling apart.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

Welcome to the Different Thinking Podcast, where creativity is welcome, conventional wisdom is tried and tested, and growth and development are nourished so that someday you can help to change the world. Now here's your host, Zach Hensrood.

SPEAKER_01: 0:21

Well, buckle up. This is going to be an episode where I'm just going to be very open, raw, and real. I know those sound like really trendy words, but just to be putting it all on the table right here, this is truly going to be one of those raw episodes. This isn't going to be fluff and buff and let me tell you how awesome I am. No, no. This is really opening up the curtain. And actually, I really enjoy that, by the way. You see productions or businesses and they look like they got it all put together. And then you peel back that curtain and you see the bailing wire and duct tape that is holding the thing together. And sometimes that's that moment of, wow, I had no idea that this business struggled the same way that my business does. I didn't realize that I wasn't alone in all of this. And so just a reminder, I'm just a guy with a microphone. And I'm just like you. I'm an aspiring leader. I always want to evolve in my leadership. So here's the opportunity for me to peel back the curtain, show you that bailing wiring duct tape that is keeping this all together. and just have an open, raw, but real conversation. Like totally putting away that puffery of, oh, I got it figured out. I shared in the last episode why there was a gap in the Different Thinking podcast. I spent the last 10 months understanding that while I thought I knew what I was doing and I thought I had a good handle on it and I had the confidence. I wouldn't say pride. I wouldn't go that far, but I had the confidence in that I would be successful at what I was going after because I knew this business. I knew what I was doing. And then to spend this next 10 months doing to quickly come to understand that I know nothing. I am in a place of learning. I talked to a coach of mine just about a month ago and I told him, I said, I just got a master class in business because everything I thought was what it was, was not what it was. And Everything that surprised me, I realized that if I would have just stepped back out of my confidence for just a moment and looked at the numbers and looked at the trends, I could see this coming. I think that's one of the craziest things is that when you are operating in business and leadership, whether it's an organization, I even think about the times that I've coached youth sports, right? When we've failed mission or when we've failed our goals, this always pops up. And so raw, real, emotional talk. This podcast episode is going to sound very, very direct. But it is that simple. I suck. I suck. I'm not the best there ever was. I'm not the Muhammad Ali of business. I suck. And it happens when you miss your goal. You fall out of mission. When you falter or fail. In just a little bit, I'm going to be doing an episode on hitting rock bottom. When you hit rock bottom, this happens. is a very real conversation. And if you are a leader listening to this going, yep, that's where I'm at. Well, I hope this episode will help you. If you're a leader that's like, no, I'm not there yet. I hate to say this, but you will be. You can't be a leader without failing. You can't be a leader without falling short. Now, there are varying degrees. I mean, it's really true that there's varying degrees of success. and varying degrees of failure. You know, in not putting together a deal or a transaction that would help you might be a failure, but it's not a failure that hurts. Having somebody embezzle thousands and thousands of dollars and then you look at your bank account, well, yeah, that is a failure that can hurt really bad. Now, I'm not saying that's what happened to me. I've seen that happen in businesses. But failures and successes are variables. There's really life-changing successes, and then there's just those incremental successes. But no matter what, as a leader, you will get to this point or come back to this point at some place in your leadership where you look in the mirror and after a failure, after a falter, and you just say it. Man, I suck. I'm horrible at this. I failed. You may even start to think I quit. I can't do this. I can't lead these people. I can't lead this organization. I mean, those are really... Strong emotions. They're not, it's not easy. Actually, the easiest part of all of this episode is just me sitting here talking about it, actually going through the process. And especially again, when I bring up that episode about hitting rock bottom, this is the easiest right here. Just talking about it. It really is. It really, really is. I recently have had more mentors enter my life and I created a podcast episode called mentors and coaches. There's, there's, there is a, a difference. There's a, there is a chasm between whether it's coaching or mentoring. And so this is a true mentor. And actually there's been a couple of mentors, but these are people that I reach out to that I connect with. And ask questions. And I guess it is a bit comforting to hear my mentor say, well, I remember when I was in this point. Oh, I remember when I faced this. Oh, these numbers, whether it's the economy or even your business numbers. Okay, this makes sense. I remember when I was here and how I got out of it. That can be comforting, but it doesn't necessarily change the emotion. So in this episode, I want to help change that emotion. Because while you have that feeling of I suck, and it's a very valid feeling, by the way, that's one of the things of testing conventional wisdom, by the way, in leadership, leaders used to tell their people that feelings don't matter. And yes, there are some that do violate it the opposite way saying, I just don't feel it today. Not that they have actual trauma or actual hurt feelings or actually they're not feeling it. They just use it as an excuse for laziness. So let's remove those extremes. And emotions do matter. I think if you recall the grieving leader that I recorded a couple of years ago, the grieving leader is exactly that, that people, especially as leaders, they don't care. And when I say care, I want to be raw with you. While they'll give you hugs and they'll send you cards and flowers, and while they will care for you, they don't care unless it affects them. Unless they're going through the hurt. So when you hit this current reality or when reality strikes and you realize, wow, I suck. How do we fix that? Because you can connect with the emotion, but how do you fix it? Well, it starts by this, and this is a hard and fast rule. This is absolutely the rule. You can hear somebody else say it differently. And I will tell you that It just does not work. Right here, I am being the expert matter on this, the material. I have tried it multiple different ways, and if I don't do it this way, it will not work. So people will tell you, oh, no, it's okay for you to talk through it. No, no, no, it's okay. You can just record it. You can put it on video or even podcasts. No, no, no, you can just type it out. Just type it on a computer screen. Type it on your phone notes. It does not work. It will not work. You can... Turn around and say, Zach, you're wrong, but I'm telling you from trying it over and over again, the hard and fast rule is that you must get out, whether it's a scrap piece of paper, a napkin, whether it is a college rule or it is just a blank printer piece of paper, get a piece of paper out. Whether it's a pen, pencil, or crayon, it does not matter that you need to physically write down That's all that matters. You have to physically write it down. That's what creates the success. So hard and fast rule that it must be in your physical writing. It must be in your handwriting, whether anybody else can read it or not. It does not matter. And again, whether it is in pen, pencil, or crayon, does not matter. Whether it's on a napkin, napkins, toilet paper, paper towels, any type of paper you want to pick, it does not matter. Heck, you can even write it on walls. I don't recommend it, but you could. It just needs to be in physical writing. This process, which I have learned from Coach Satemanali, is a mini process that I'm just going to walk you through very quickly to help you get back up from the reality that you suck. Because you did fail. Listen, I am not going to sugarcoat it, and I will be the first to tell you on this episode here. Anything that has negatively affected my life as of that 10 months of going through the masterclass, all of it, I had control of all of it. I could have seen it coming all of it. Like it's one of those things that, um, that I really like, this is stuff that when that reality hit, it's real, it's raw. I wasn't doing it the right way. Which actually became a gift, which I'll share in just a moment. But let's go through this process. So first thing you need to do, whether it takes a page, a paragraph, or a sentence, what happened? And in this what happened, there's no emotion whatsoever. So if it's, I think, I feel, nope, that's not acceptable. It seemed like, nope, not acceptable. No emotion. You got to remove the emotion. Just the facts. Just the facts. Three agents left the company. The seller of this multi-million dollar transaction backed out. This business operations failed. This congregation failed. Split. The team lost three games in a row. No emotion whatsoever. Nothing. Just the facts. That's all you can do. Just the facts. That's only the first part. So if you're like, okay, pause, boop, I'm done. I'll just write down everything that was just the facts. You're going to miss the rest, but just put the facts down. What are, what actually happened? And then once you're done with that, again, it can be a sentence. It can be a few words. It could be a paragraph. It could be a page. It could be a manifesto, whatever, whatever you need, the length you need it to be. Just make sure that no emotions in it, because I'm going to tell you in part number two here or section number two, this is where you get to put the, I thinks I feel, I hopes I got the part two is how do you feel about it? Now in this, you need to become very, very, very open, not just a little open. It doesn't matter if you hold onto this page. It doesn't matter if someone else reads this page. If you want to put some raw, real emotion in there, use raw, real emotional language. How do you feel? Don't sugarcoat it. Don't press it down. Don't try to filter it through someone else's eyes. Lay it All out on the piece of paper. Now, if I was to just judge a little bit, I would say your facts are probably going to be very, very simple and small. Your feelings are going to be big and long. Like, it's just going to be one of those things where you're going to be feeling a lot of feels and you're going to be putting a lot of words on paper. Now, I found if I was to stop here at... at this second part here, just by writing out how I feel relief would come. Like there would start to be a sense of relief. At least I'm getting it out of my system. They talk about in sports, the ips where somebody that has done, uh, a action or like, uh, we'll just do something simple, a pitcher, uh, who throws a baseball to, um, you know, a catcher that's like 60 feet down the, the, the field. And they've done this a million times since they were, you know, seven years old, all of a sudden can no longer get it to, uh, the plate and their, their arm just doesn't work anymore. Physically. They're good. Just something mentally that, that hit them. And what they find is that when someone starts to hit something like that, there's repressed feelings, repressed thoughts, like repressed emotions. And so that's why it's so important to start to get this on paper because once you start to see it in your handwriting on paper, you can't, by the way, you cannot delete, you can't delete your thoughts when you're writing it on paper because Sure, you can cross them off, you can black them out, but it's there. It's still there for you to focus on. You can't just erase it or exit out of the screen and make it disappear. And so with that being said, put all that emotion on there. Then get to section three or point number three. It's very, very simple. Is what you're feeling true? You want to know how simple this is? Yes. Yes. Or no? There's no in between. There should only be one response. Yes or no? This should be incredibly simple. Yes, no. And if it's true, what did you really want? That's point number four. What did you really want? What outcome were you really looking for? What were you really hoping for? If the answer is no, no, these feelings aren't true, these thoughts aren't true, then what did you really want? And you got to write out clarity. What did you really want to have happen? And see, when you get to that fourth point, all of a sudden, the truth starts to come out. Now, there's different additional steps where we can find the lesson. Was this empowering? But before I go there, when you have hit this moment of I suck and reality hits and it's real and you understand that everything you've been working for is actually been going towards a failure and not success, writing it out of what did I want, you start to find the areas in which you can change, the areas that you can adjust or evolve in. You can start to find, how did I miss it this time? Curtain peeled back. Month number one of this 10-month masterclass in business, I didn't figure out there was a problem. Month number nine, I didn't have to figure out there was a problem. I could see the problem. If that makes sense, month number one, I didn't quite know that there was a problem. Just things weren't hitting quite right. But month number nine, I didn't need someone to go, oh, hey, you know, Zach, there's a problem here. I didn't need that. That was very evident. It was like, whoa, wait a minute. And I'm looking in the mirror going, I thought I had this, but I suck. I thought I was much more further past this. I thought I got this handled better. Whoa, I failed. I fell short. I mean, and what was interesting for me was it wasn't just in business. There was parts of my life that I woke up to this idea of, wow, I suck. I went backwards, right? Again, now looking back, hindsight being 2020, oh, there was so many warning signs. There were so many areas where, okay, yep, that makes sense. I'm heading in that direction, but I just kept going in that direction. And while I lament that, while I am disappointed in that right now, I can't go back and change it. And here's the separator with... different thinking leaders see conventional leadership would just live with it and and would just process through and even processing is not the right word they would just they just float through it and eventually it may lead to that leader giving up or quitting it may lead to them creating disappointment with their people it may make them do extreme things Like such as massive layoffs or cutting spending or cutting contracts with individuals, with making extreme changes. Now, extreme changes sometimes are required, but as a leader, it's something where as you go through this mini process, the answers in themselves will start to come up. Oh, okay. Okay. If I make this adjustment now again, easy part behind the microphone, what I'm saying right now, hard parts living it. Did you catch that? Write that down. Easy part behind the microphone. So when you see a leader on a podcast or on a video and they've got all this crap figured out, it looks like they got it all figured out. It's all bailing wire and duct tape. One of the people that I'd love to have dinner with, which I know I'll never get the chance to is Steve Jobs. And he even had a quote. That said that this world that we live in is made up of made by people that are no smarter than you and I. And once we realize that we can mold it, we can change it. And now I know I'm paraphrasing what he said, but that's the idea behind it is this, is that while you have the gurus and you have the, the people that have started multiple businesses, if you peeled back the curtain, you'd see the multiple failures that they had. This is just a process that will allow you to find the answers without creating more problems and living in this world where you say, I suck. Because here's the truth. Again, you don't. Now you failed. Now this didn't go according to plan. Correct? 100%. Yeah, that is on you. But ultimately, you got yourself there. You can get yourself out of there. You got yourself in this situation. You could ultimately get yourself out of that situation. And so my encouragement to all of you listening today on the podcast, whether you're in this position or not, you will find yourself where you're one day looking at the mirror going, man, I suck. Because failure comes no matter what. Even the people, again, that have it all figured out, they will have still more seasons of failure, of faltering, of difficulty. Write it down. Put it in your words. Understand that you're really not that far away from where you want to be. And in there, that's the true power. But you have to put it on paper, make it real, put it in front of you, and that's where you'll see success. the change. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the different thinking podcast. I'm so grateful that you are here, that you're being a part of this community. The greatest compliment, the greatest gift that you can give is this to somebody else, this podcast, you can share it with them. If you know of someone going through a hard time, send them this episode. and see how you can make a difference and help somebody else. Until next time, my friends, thank you so much for listening. And remember, today is a great day to apply different thinking. Take care.

SPEAKER_00: 24:43

Thank you for listening to the Different Thinking Podcast. Please follow the show on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Don't forget to rate and review us. And remember, today is a great day for you to apply different thinking. Thanks again for listening.