Hey brian here i want to take a minute to talk about, i guess new year's resolutions, i'm sitting outside of the gym, not doing like a humble brag about going to the gym, but it just had me thinking about it, because this is not a new year's Resolution for me, it's been something i've been working on for quite some time, trying to lose a stubborn 20 pounds or so still working on it every year we get to this time of year, and i think it's worthwhile to think about what are some things that You can do that, aren't new year's resolutions, but are just steps forward. That's the way that i would think about it. Just making progress. One of the biggest things that i see that leads to success in people's careers and personal life is having the mindset of being a lifelong learner, and that means learning facts, but it also means growing in practices.

So you know the person you were a few years ago. If you look back at that person, have you significantly changed? Have you significantly grown in any way, and i think it's actually a good sign if you can look back two three four five years in the past and actually feel somewhat ashamed of a lot of who you were at that time and i think, if we're continuing To grow, then we'll do the same for where we are now we'll look back and we'll see significant growth in our lives, and so that's a good thing, but there's two things: i want to encourage you to stay away from in your career and specifically your career As an hvac technician, when somebody like me, does a video like this, it's kind of like you know, stay in your lane. Man, talk about, you know contactors and capacitors and refrigerant charging and airflow, but i'm also a business owner, and i have made a lot of mistakes in my career. I've grown from a technician to um to running an organization and i've seen the deficits in myself that have led to uh significant setbacks, and so, as we mature.

One of the big things that we want to do is reduce the errors that we make reduce the mistakes that we make that lead to problems in our lives and one of the big mistakes that i see that people make is a victim mentality. And we talk a lot about a victim mentality and often it's used to kind of point fingers at other people. Maybe people groups that we don't see eye to eye with one of the common ones. That's come up over the last couple years is baby boomers, calling millennials entitled and then millennials turning around and calling them boomers or karen's or whatever the case may be.

There's sort of this. You know entitlement that comes in every generation the expectations of what they think life should be, but a lot of the problems that occur in our careers. We go into something expecting a particular outcome. We have an expectation and unfulfilled expectations lead to disappointment, and that's really what entitlement is it's saying i deserve this.

I expect this and therefore i should get this. A lot of people will point out. Well, if somebody promises me something or somebody says something's going to happen, and it doesn't happen then aren't i entitled to that. Isn't that something that i that i am owed - and that may be true, but the reality is - is that those sorts of disappointments of having people break promises even having people straight up lie to? You is a big part of life.

We all experience that, and in fact a lot of us are on the other side of that. At times where we have, you know, maybe had the best of intentions, we promised something and then we can't accomplish it so living a life where we're always having these expectations of things and then being consistently disappointed that is sort of the seeds of entitlement. So don't walk into your everyday life, having expectations of what others are going to do, but rather have expectations of how you're going to behave in all circumstances. What are you going to do, regardless of what your boss does, what your co-workers do, whether or not that customer is difficult or not, because at the end of the day, the journey of your own growth is about self-development is who are you going to become, as You move forward in your career, you may have a hard week.

You may have a tough month. You may have a bad year. You may have a year in which you didn't make the money or receive the promotion that you felt like you deserved, but does that really hold you back from what you're going to accomplish long term when you develop those technical skills, those leadership skills, those communication skills, As you grow as a technician as you grow as a leader in your personal life as you grow as a family member as a friend as a father as a mother, the answer is, of course not. Nobody can take that away from you.

So that's what you want to consistently invest in is who you are becoming as a person rather than feeling like you, have expectations or entitlements and again, i'm speaking this to myself. This is you know, sort of in lieu of a new year's resolution. Just talking to myself and saying who do i want to become, and one of it is to just give up those expectations. Give up those disappointments, give up those entitlements.

The next one is feeling like a savior or feeling like being a savior is something that is valuable or worthwhile helping people serving people doing work that matters. Those are all things that we do, because it's something that we've decided to do in order to be a person of integrity being kind to people, doing it to others, as they would do to you. Those are all things that we do because we're human and because we want to be the best that we can be in serving our fellow man. But i see many people, business owners, technicians who get this hero mentality where they want to go in and they want to be the savior it's about being seen as the one who's making all the difference and in an organization this happens a lot with leadership where You want the credit for what other people do and, on the other side of things, there's a lot of folks who work in an organization who are always looking to be seen.

They always want to be noticed if they're not seen as the savior, then they feel like they've, been taken advantage of in some way sort of goes hand in hand with entitlement it's like feeling like you have to be the man you have to be the super Tech, you have to be the unicorn tech to go back to sort of the joke of our pyramid hierarchy that i've been sharing on social media feeling like um. If you don't have that dopamine hit of always being seen as awesome, always being seen as that savior that then uh then becomes it can actually become depressing honestly, and for me i experienced that when i went from being a trainer in a large organization to becoming A small business owner where it was really just me you get that feeling of like gosh. You know there's nobody to to be impressed with my efforts. You know your customers might be happy with what you do, but in the same day you might have a customer who's upset, and so then, that feeling of being a hero or not being a hero, dictates your emotions.

So, in both of these cases, either feeling like you need to be the hero or feeling like a victim in both cases, it's an externality, it's outside of you. There are these things that happen to you that make you feel a certain way, good, bad apathetic, happy. Whatever it is, and really what we want to do in 2022 and moving forward is, instead of always looking at how others feel about us or maybe even the results, always instead just embrace lifelong learning embrace personal growth, and that means you know, learning new technical skills. It means experimenting with things: you've never done before reading a new book, developing some knowledge, whatever that is, but even more than that and more commonly than that, it's developing the internal character that says that you truly do care about people you care about doing the right Thing but you aren't dictated by the emotions of others.

Your feelings about yourself aren't dictated by today's circumstances or tomorrow's circumstances, or whether or not this is a good year or what the construction cycle is like or whether or not materials are hard or easy to get or whether or not staff are easy to train or Not train or what the next generation is going to be like, because we have no control over those things, but we do have control over is. Are we going to show up every day and are we going to be? Who we're supposed to be? Who we're called to be a life that we've chosen and designed for ourselves? And so that's a call to myself. It's a call to you. It's a call to our entire trade, be a lifelong learner, be a person of character, treat others really well, but do it because you're growing not because you need to be the hero, you need to be seen.

You need to be accoladed and when things don't go, the way that you expected when somebody does take advantage of you when somebody does even lie to you in certain circumstances, don't let that define you don't let that cause you to spin and have these feelings of Expectation and entitlement that lead to disappointment and honestly, in some cases, depression in terms of your own mental health, plotting your path and walking that path, regardless of those externalities, though it's very hard to do, is your way forward. So i really hope for a good 2022 for you. We will be back to technical videos here very shortly. I just want to give you a little encouragement.

I appreciate all of you who have watched and who have participated in everything we do. I hope a really really great year for you, without any new year's resolutions, just good solid growth and lifelong learning, thanks for watching our video, if you enjoyed it and got something out of it, if you wouldn't mind hitting the thumbs up button to like the video Subscribe to the channel and click the notifications bell to be notified when new videos come out, hbac school is far more than a youtube channel. You can find out more by going to hvacrschool.com, which is our website and hub for all of our content, including tech tips. Videos, podcasts and so much more.

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