Eddie Wilson (0:00)

Welcome to the Impact Podcast. I'm Eddie Wilson, here to help you visualize what others cannot see, create opportunities where others have failed, and push you to build empires where once there was empty space. Let's embark on this journey together and make a difference in this world. Today's episode, we're going to talk about order versus chaos. Chaos versus order. One of my favorite authors, Jordan Peterson, talks a lot about this concept in. In kind of the Theology of man, right? And I think it's very practical inside of our personal lives as well as our business and professional lives, but to kind of set the tone, right? Life is nothing more than the airplane. The airplane is the metaphor for life. And you're sitting there as a passenger, you've got your tray table out, you've got your soda on the, on the tray table, you've got your peanuts open, and all of a sudden the plane begins to erupt and bounce all over and chaos begins to ensue, right? So your drinks flying everywhere. The flight attendant, stewardess, they're grabbing onto seats. Maybe they're actually going down to their knees. I don't know if you ever experienced turbulence at that level, but chaos is almost immediate. People begin to gasp. Noises come out of people frequently that they can't control. As a matter of fact, there was one flight I was on. And to kind of set the tone for this podcast, I want to tell this quick story. I was on a pod. I was on a flight with two business partners of mine, David Jorgensen, who's my cfo, and Tim Brennan, who formerly worked for me and was in a technology capacity. We were spread out all over the plane and from what they say, it was the worst turbulence they've ever experienced in their life. They really believed that they were going to die. However, I have this thing on planes that the moment I get on a plane, I fall asleep. I don't know what it is, but I go in and out of like sleep and reading a book or working, and if I'm out, I'm out. So, like, I actually didn't experience it at all. My experience was we landed, I woke up, and I'm between two people, right? Actually in the middle seat in the airplane. Horrible place, but I'm in the middle seat. It was a last minute thing and these were the seats we could get. So I'm in the middle seat between two people. And as I wake up, I hear them all talking about, oh my gosh, worst flight ever. We're so glad we're alive. And every conversation around me is this conversation. I saw a mom and a daughter hug right in front of me. I saw an older couple, you know, as I turned around talking and discussing, they can't believe we actually got out of this alive. And, you know, for me, I just came back to the land of living. I'm just waking up. So, like, I'm thinking, it can't be that bad, right? Like, it can't be that bad. So I'm ahead of both Dave and Tim, and I get off the plane. I get off the plane and I'm just standing there and every person coming off the plane is visibly shaken and talking about this flight. Dave comes off the plane with Tim together, and Dave, my cfo, actually lays on the floor and kisses, like, physically kisses the ground. That's how, like, just emotional he is. Like, he's laying on the ground and he kisses it. Like, I mean, like, not like, you know, he's doing this for real, right? So, like, I'm looking at him like, are you crazy? And Tim walks off and he's just like, disheveled. And they begin to start talking about it and telling stories about how Tim was sitting next to this older couple who was holding hands and praying out loud. And Tim was so afraid that he was going to die that he actually asked if he could get in on there holding hands and praying and grabs this couple's hands and begins to pray with them out loud. Dave also has a similar experience in that everybody around is praying out loud, so he just decides he's going to pray out loud too. And so their experience is radically different. Now, understand, I'm not a big hugger. I don't enjoy a lot of physical touch. And both that day, they decided they both were coming in for hugs because they were just emotionally wrecked over this experience. I of course, made fun of them and told them it can't be that big of a deal. I slept through it. They didn't believe I actually slept through it. They thought I was messing with them. But it's interesting to kind of note because if you've ever been through that experience, everyone experiences it differently. However, if you've ever sat in the cockpit of a plane during turbulence, oftentimes you don't even really recognize it that much. Your mind is on the plane, flying, you know, like, you're not actually experiencing it when you are the steward or the stewardess, you're the flight attendant, you're actually experiencing it third party because your job is to manage the chaos, right? And so the actual plane is a metaphor for Life. But the three people that I brought up earlier are really a metaphor for who you are in any situation in life. You're the pilot, you're the flight attendant, the manager, or you are the passenger, the one experiencing it. And so to just step back just a little bit, I want to kind of just walk back, back and explain this real quick. So the pilot is really the person who's enforcing order, right? The pilot has training, taste control, stabilizes and represents leadership. The flight attendant is always the bridge between the chaos and the order, right? So they're the one that is intentionally calming. They're the ones that are overly communicating. They're managing the emotional responses and they're pushing the person towards an end result, right? And then lastly, you have the passenger, the person who's experiencing the chaos, right? The pilot doesn't necessarily always experience the chaos. They're essentially like creating the chaos. They're flying you into the turbulence. The flight attendant not necessarily experiencing the chaos, they're managing the chaos. But the person who's actually managing the chaos is the actual passenger. They can then make a choice of what to experience. They can stay calm, they can panic, they can. They essentially are powerless. They may have some influence, but they don't have power. And this represents the average person in any scenario in society, relationships or the professional realm. So in every chaotic situation, people naturally fall into these roles. So now to kind of step back just a little bit and give you some philosophical grounding. So really to go back to order and chaos, we're gonna talk about those three roles within order and chaos. But in every situation, there's always order and there's always chaos. One typically is ruling the other, right? If you go back and you wanna go maybe even to the story of creation, right? God takes the chaos, right? The uncreated, the. The masses of. Of kind of like existence, right? And he brings light into the darkness. He brings. He brings order to the world. He begins to form Earth. He creates man, right? So like even from the very beginning of time, what we see is chaos that is then brought into order. Brought into order. Another kind of example is, you know, if you go into, like Greek mythology, oftentimes what they're talking about with regard to the gods, are the gods responsibility to take their role and creating order in the chaos, right? In the chaos. And so when we kind of begin to look at this, we can look at it in any situation, right? You can in kind of that realm, look at it within business. Oftentimes, order is the checks, the balances, the Measurables, they're the processes by which we put in place. And then you have the chaos. Oftentimes that's the creativity, that's the sales process, that's marketing, right? And oftentimes it leans one way or another, right? Like if you look at my business partner and I, Andrew Cordle, he's very much chaos, right? And I'm very much order. And oftentimes that has a clash, but it also has a very beautiful balance, right? And then let's walk down just one step further. Let's talk about personal relationships. Are you the person who is creating conflict or are you the person who is stabilizing conflicts? Almost in every single relationship, one is creating the chaos, right? One is the chaos and one is the order. You oftentimes have someone who's very stabilizing and some that and one that's very emotional. Opposites attract in almost every situation in life. And so you always find these balances in life, the workplace or team dynamics, right? You oftentimes have the pilot, the manager, the steward, or the team lead, and the passengers, the team members. And the balance between chaos and order oftentimes can dictate how fast you move, how chaotic, how difficult the experience is for everyone involved. And again, you see chaos and order consistently. You know, I've, I've read so much when it comes to this area, and, you know, one of the things that Jordan Peterson says in his book is he says to stand up straight with your shoulders back is to accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open. It means deciding to voluntary voluntarily transform the chaos of potential into the realities of habitable order, which is kind of a brilliant concept. Oftentimes when you look at the male versus female dynamic, you look at the masculine versus the feminine. Oftentimes the masculine leans more towards order or logic, and oftentimes the feminine leads more towards feeling or chaos, right? And so we've got like all these examples in life. So wherever you experience both order and chaos, we have to understand that both need a proper existence. Both are absolutely necessary. But let me show you what happens when one rules and one is diminished. If you have chaos, right, consistent chaos, and chaos is always leading, then what you feel is a lack of predictability, very little safety. And oftentimes think about the word anarchy or the breaking down of systems. That's true chaos, right? And think about your life right now. Is that indicative of your life? Is that indicative of your personal or professional experience? When you go to work, is there a constant breaking down of systems? Is there Oftentimes anarchy. One voice rules. Is there no predictability? Is there very little safety? Right. That means that you're leaning more towards chaos. Think about your home life, your relationships. Is it a constant movement of up and down? Is it a constant roller coaster? Is there constant change or constant creativity or a constant need for evolving or innovation? Right. Now think about it the other way. So you've got the negative side of chaos. Let's talk about the negative side of order. Oftentimes order can stifle growth, innovation, or freedom. When you lean so hard into order, everything becomes a system and there is no variation. How boring is that? Right. It's like living a life being colorblind. I'm very extremely colorblind, and I don't see a lot of colors. Right. Oftentimes that would be the feeling that you would experience if you were in an organization that had no innovation, no growth, no freedom. So think about it this way. Think about this as dictatorship, right? Where everything is told to you, every act is predetermined, and, and you're governed towards that predetermined act. There may be safety, but it's so rigid in systems. You can't ever experience the excitement that comes with the lack of safety. Right? So you've got both of these feelings that are at war with each other and you've got this experience going on in your life. And I can break down my life today. And so that in professional it may lend more towards chaos, and in personal it might lend towards order. And you've got kind of all these experiences in life. So I want you to just think through that as we're talking about it now. Let me kind of walk back through the three people. So in life, there's always a pilot, there's always the flight attendant, and there's always the passenger. Right? The passenger is oftentimes the one who is made to experience the over order or over chaos of any situation. The flight attendant is oftentimes given the responsibility of that bridge between the chaos and the order, or the order and the chaos, where they're helping experience. They're helping people experience the situation the right way. And then you have the pilot. Right, the pilot. Now let me talk to you about this in the regards to professional. So oftentimes in any given organization, you've got a CEO or you've got a visionary leader, and that leader is oftentimes leading in either chaos or order. Now, in an entrepreneurial kind of environment, it's almost always chaos. It's almost always leaning towards chaos. And What I would say is that oftentimes we diminish the role of the mid level manager. When I would say it's actually the most vital role role in the entire company. We oftentimes say, well, without a visionary, we're not going to move forward. Without vision, you know, people suffer, people perish. Right? Like, but the reality of it is, is like once that vision is cast, then the actual workers, the passengers on the plane actually then fall into the experience. And based on their perception of the experience, oftentimes you either get productivity or a lack of productivity. The manager's role, the mid level manager, which we'll call the flight attendant today, is oftentimes not just about getting the most out of their resources. It's about managing the perception of the experience of the actual passenger. This is the big giant missing piece in all middle management. What they do is they actually go, well, I have this resources I have to maximize its output of. So they're constantly thinking about the people they have, the finances they have, the materials they have, the equipment they have. But what they miss is their job is to be the bridge between the chaos and the order. Their job is to help manage the perspective, the perception of the actual experience itself. Right. So if you're the mid level manager, think about it this way. And I like the pilot, stewardess, passenger concept, especially when I'm teaching mid level managers because it gives them a way to kind of pull themselves out of it. If. Think about it this way. If all of a sudden the turbulence begins to hit and the passengers begin to erupt and they begin to get frantic and frustrated, your expectation of that stewardess or that flight attendant is to calm them down, to tell them things like, you know what, in all of my years I've experienced this before, it might be bad. We have never had an issue during turbulence and then maybe even give stats, you know, like, never has a plane gone down because of too much turbulence. It goes down for various reasons, but not turbulence, right? You could say I don't. Have you ever seen those YouTube channels where they take a plane's airplane and they see, they look at the tensile strength of the airplanes, they'll grab the wings and they'll fold the wings all the way up to touching themselves to just show that they can't snap. That's how pliable airplane aluminum is or aircraft aluminum is. And it's like, what if they talked about that, right? That that's what you would expect from a mid level manager, a flight attendant, right. However, let me tell you if you were to take a flight attendant and make them act like the average mid level manager, tell me what would happen to the experience of the actual passenger. You know what this, like just think, think with me for a second. How many times the mid level manager throw the visionary, the pilot, under the bus? What if it went like this and this happens at your work all the time. I don't know what this pilot's thinking. You know what? If I were the pilot right now, as a matter of fact, what I would do is I would probably take this thing to 35,000ft because I bet you the air is a whole lot better. I hate that you're experiencing this. But the pilot, you know, they've got their own ideas. Like think about how many times the mid level manager does that to the visionary leader, right? Like what are they doing? They're not just destroying the relationship between the pilot and the flight attendant. What they're doing is they're crushing the experience of the passenger, which is really what you're dependent on to actually get benefit or you know, like the growth out of your company. What if they did this, right? So that's a typical one. What if you get like one of those harsh mid level managers, right? You know what, your experience right now is on you. You need to decide whether or not you are gonna, you're in this flight for the long haul. This is on you, right? Like that's the harsh mid level manager. They just cast all blame on the passenger, right? Like there's no empathy. It's just like they think it's got to be tough love, you know, suck it up, make it the best of it and this just is what it is. How about this? How about this one? You know what? When I was a passenger, I actually sat in these seats. I never cried, I never whimpered, right? Like how about the mid level manager that just makes the passenger feel bad because they browbeat them on how great of a passenger they used to be now that they're a flight attendant, right? That happens in mid level management all the time. There's so many scenarios and it's so funny because mid level management is a difficult thing, but it's done so poorly because we never think about the experience of the passenger. However, you're completely dependent on the passenger to actually think about it. If the passengers aren't on the plane, there is no money to actually fly the plane, right? Like there is no need for a pilot. There is no need. So the passengers are vital and they realize that in the airline industry. But we don't realize that in the workplace. How about, let's take it down to your children. What if the children are the passengers? What if what we do is we actually are giving think about those same exact scenarios. Do you know that your child's experience in life oftentimes is based on how you manage that experience? Right? Like think about it, you know, and I, I've, I've screwed this one up many times in my lifetime. I've got three boys. And that tough love scenario seems like the right thing to do at all times. And oftentimes it's not right. Like I get the chance to have them navigate life and perceive their experiences in a right way and that gives them a positive experience, a positive outlook on their life. But oftentimes if I do the same thing, right, like, boy, when I was in school, you know, like I used to walk hill, uphill both ways, you know, like my football practices, I didn't do two days, I did three days. You need to suck it up, right? Like we have this crazy outlook on who we are, what we've experienced and understand your experience is not going to be the passenger's experience. That passenger can be your children, that passenger can be your, your workers. The passenger can be the people around you, right? I was in a coffee shop the other day and I was, the passenger was essentially the person standing there making an order and they were frustrated because the coffee shop was out of a certain type of milk they were ordering. And the mid level manager comes over and, and is basically like, hey, you know, like it just is what it is. I'm sorry, we don't have it. They were very frustrated with the, the passenger, right? The customer, the general manager comes over, probably the owner of the shop comes over and begins to explain, hey, you know what? We have had a run on. Just, I think it was oat milk was what the person was wanting a run on oat milk. I am so sorry. As a matter of fact, is there any other type of milk that you would consider and can I give you a pastry to go along with it, right? Like the mid level manager saying, you know what, suck it up. Too bad we're out of oat milk, we can't help you, right? Like you could tell that the owner comes over like the pilot, right? Like, hey, I'm going to actually navigate this a lot differently. And in that navigation, all of a sudden the experience of the passenger is so vitally different. So I want to ask you this, where are you in all of this, right? Are you Creating the right experience for the passengers around you. In some scenarios, you get to be the pilot. Oftentimes I love, during turbulence when the pilot comes on and he says things like, hey, you know what? Sorry, you're experiencing a lot of turbulence. Nothing to be worried about. We're looking for clear air. We're talking to the ground control, trying to figure out the best place to get you. We're gonna have. We're gonna make sure our flight attendants are seated for a little while. We don't want anyone hurt. We understand it's bumpy, right? Like, what happens in that moment, you feel like, okay, somebody is in control of this thing, right? And then congruently, when the flight attendant is very soft and they're very cautious and they're very, you know, kind and warm and loving and reassuring, all of a sudden, right? Like your experience as a passenger radically changes. Radically changes. Now, it's not to say that sometimes when you're the passenger, you don't get to make the choice as to what your experience is, right? Like, my. My experience is my own responsibility. I believe that, right? Like, you can take somebody who hurt you in a massive way and you can go, you know what? I can't believe that person hurt me. And I can't believe that person did something horrible to me. And you can become a victim very, very quickly, but again, really, that is on you. Or you could go, you know what? That person also was hurting. That person probably didn't mean to do that. That person actually probably was not intentional. They were doing it to themselves, not doing it to me. And you can change your entire experience experience by changing your perspective, right? And our experience is really our responsibility, that our human experience is our personal responsibility. You get to make the choice as to what your experience is. There's personal responsibility there. But the next thing is, as a flight attendant, in so many situations where I'm not necessarily in control of the situation where we're headed, but I am in control of helping guide this person into a better experience. I can speak life and positivity and direction towards them so that their experience in life helping change their perspective and helping change their outcome in life. Think about how many people are not strong enough to do what I just talked about, change their own perspective so that their experience changes. A good majority of the world cannot do that, right? Like, no matter how much I say that, there are people on this podcast are going to be like, Eddie, that's B.S. like, you can't just change your. You can. And some. And the highest Level, emotional, kind of intelligence. Listening to me right now, very much understands exactly what I'm talking about. But a good percentage of the world can't do that. So as the attendant, I can actually sew into them so that they can experience that. Think about a younger staff member that just hasn't ever gone through difficult times. It's like a first time flyer that all of a sudden is like, what is this turbulence? Right? That's usually the staff member that's coming in in the first year or two or three, and they just haven't experienced the turbulence of business, right? Like business is never smooth sailing. It doesn't matter who you are, what company you are with. If you're a Fortune 500 or a brand new startup, there's turbulence, there always will be. It's just the nature of business. But most people don't know how to guide it. So like you guide somebody into that and now all of a sudden they can begin to change their experience because their perception changes. And then from a pilot standpoint, always being aware, always being aware that my choices can and will cause turbulence, right? I'll step back for kind of a final thought. Chaos versus order. We need both. As a matter of fact, without the chaos, there is no need for order. I love that even in the story of creation, there's no form or void. And God actually comes in and forms the voids. He begins to bring light into the darkness. He begins to form something out of the dust, right? And so I love that the chaos is always the beginning. Because when you look at your life today, the greatest opportunity that you're facing today is wherever there is chaos, wherever there's chaos, sometimes we don't like it. I'm a person that loves order. And so what I do, what I do, oftentimes I run from the chaos. I'll get frustrated, the chaos. I'll try to put the chaos in a box, right? But your greatest opportunity today always comes out of the chaos. The chaos in your marriage. Great opportunity for order and progression, right? You have to choose pilot, flight attendant, passenger. What's the experience, the problem you have at work, the chaos at work. It's the greatest opportunity, the chaos. What you get to do is based on the experience, bring order to it. The opportunities you have in your life are always based on chaos and then order being brought to it. Oftentimes we miss it because we get frustrated over the chaos and the struggle, the turbulence, right? But without turbulence, without struggle, oftentimes there is no chaos, which means there is no creativity, which Means there is no forward movement. Think about this. The only plane that never experiences turbulence is the one that sits on the ground, the one that never takes flight. If you've taken flight, you're going to feel turbulence. And typically the harder, the faster, the higher you fly, the more turbulence you feel. And oftentimes that plane, the metaphor for life, in order to get to the destination that you so desire, has to go through turbulence. But you don't want to get to your destination with a horrible experience. Optimize the daily experiences of your life by making sure you have control of your perception and you clearly understand. Am I the pilot, am I the flight attendant, or am I the passenger? I.