Clarity vs. Darkness (Episode 4)

Most people are waiting for clarity. The reality is, you’re often moving through darkness without realizing it.

In this episode, Kyle Hosick and Kim Fitzpatrick challenge the idea that successful people have everything figured out. They explore how uncertainty is part of the process and why waiting for perfect clarity is what keeps most people stuck.

No one knows exactly what they’re doing. The ones who move forward are simply willing to act anyway.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Legacy Live.

SPEAKER_00 0:01

I'm your host, Kyle Hosick.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

And I'm your host, Kim Fitzpatrick.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And this is the podcast that's all about business. It's about energy. It's about attitude. It's about leadership. It's mindset. It's navigating what legacy looks like. It's funny because at the start of these, I don't ever think we're going to get to what legacy looks like based on where we would agree the topic might start. Right. But it's so fun as these topics evolve how we're figuring it all out.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I agree. And and you know, one of the things that I I also think this is about is is about the discernment and getting clear on what your priorities are and figuring out what aligns for you. And that also is leadership too. And legacy.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

So we've you've hinted at the topic for today. And this is gonna, I think, gonna be fun because Kim and I, as much as we're alike in many ways, we have we are perceive things differently sometimes. Yeah, absolutely. And just use different words for how we feel when we operate in business. And today is about Kim's word clarity, which you've owned that word like for a long time, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yes, it it's like it's in my body.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

It's your J it's what you're about. It's like helping people get clear on who they are, yeah, what they want, yeah, and where they're going. Yep. And recently we've been talking about how I look at business every day, and I kind of admitted to the fact that I'm reveling in having no clarity. So I'm clear on a lot of things. Yes. But I when I, you know, Monday morning, I pop out of bed, walk into the family room, make my coffee, and I just said like I am in utter darkness on where this is going. And I'm learning to love the darkness. And so this is um, you know, I it and this isn't good guy, bad guy, right? It's not light side, dark side, it's not Star Wars, it's it's using different words to describe the same thing, and that's your perspective and my perspective. And the darkness for me, like you, I'm sure when you were a kid, like in a basement somewhere, you know when you try to see in the dark, and you can almost kind of can, like you're like, oh, I now that my eyes are adjusting, I have that like five-year-old at all times in business where I'm trying to see in the dark because I don't, you know, and the other thing is it's I did a call on Monday with our cohort, which is a bonus call, and I use this weird analogy to describe me navigating business, and it was Silence of the Lambs, the end of the movie, when Clarice, the lights go out, yeah, like the serial killer turns the lights out, and I loved this analogy because this is truly what I feel like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday is am I gonna just stand there in the dark and let the serial killer find me? Right. She didn't, she moves through the room, moving through the space, and that's me and I'm moving, I'm going. It's dark, but I'm not standing here. I this is 30 plus years, 30 years of me having my own business where I've been moving around in the dark, and now I know where the furniture is. Yeah, I know where there's the stack of blankets, and I can feel stuff, and that's experience. But it doesn't mean it gets any brighter, but I'm like super comfortable in the darkness. Right. And I I because it's so exciting to see what's in the dark. But you can't see, but you can't be scared of what's in the dark. Yes. You you gotta get that mindset of I can't wait to find out what's in the darkness.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

You know what's interesting to me when you were talking about like that five-year-old, because for me, whenever I was in the dark, I'd race up the stairs as fast as I could to find the light. Yeah, and so it's a good analogy. I'm actually wearing, and we were commenting on like my dark jacket with my light jeans, and I'm like, gosh, there's such a there's such a nuance to that right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

That was by accident.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

That was by accident, it really was by accident. But today we want to talk about clarity versus darkness and leadership and how they can actually be so similar. Yeah, it's just a different meaning, it's a different perception. So for some of you, you might be like, I don't resonate with that. I don't resonate with clarity, like what Kim's talking about. I don't see it. I don't, I don't even know what my desires are.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

That's fine because you I you're identifying as a kyle who lives in darkness.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Exactly. But that's I've never I've never looked at it that way because I'm always like, no, you're just gonna find the clarity. We're gonna, this is like I I remember running a mastermind. I was like awakener clarity, and I was just like so proud of the movement of where all these women arrive to in their clarity. But if you really think about it, some of them had their own process. Like some of them maybe still were in the dark, and there's no right or wrong as you're trying to decide where I'm going. And it's like it's true. It's like the more you can feel stable in and around. The other thing about clarity and even navigating in the darkness, and I what I really admire about this is it's the ability to live in the uncertainty.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

That's what business is. It is that is business. Psychological readiness.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Yes. Psychological readiness. That is what business is. And it's preparing yourself to be like, it's okay. If I don't know how this is gonna end, I am I am committed to the journey. I'm gonna dive all in. We're gonna go. And that is also being clear in your your commitment, in your decisions. That's huge in leadership.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

The most successful leaders or business people got good with not being good at all times because that risk, you gotta take the risk and you gotta live with the pressure. And that these are the this is the psychological readiness, is like I've got pressure, big time pressure, yeah, with a few different areas of business. Everybody does, yeah. Like you've you've you've said I'm jumping in, I decided I have a business. Yeah, now you got pressure, you gotta live up to what's going on. You were gonna do. And um back to sort of clarity. We were working through um developing a program last week, and I talked like I have super clarity if I turn around and look at the time from when I was 40 to 50, yes, which I will be in the summer, right? It's super clear, and I trusted that, you know how am I not phrasing this right? Like, so I trust the next 10 years to happen the with the clarity that I have on those last 10.

SPEAKER_01 7:07

Right. That's powerful.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

That's um I think that's the only way you can look at that darkness is just believe and have faith in the future.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

And there's hope in that. I mean, hope is not a strategy at all, but I love being hopeful. I love being, you know, um creative. I love creating space to be like, hey, I'm gonna trust in that this is gonna work itself out. Like, trust and is safety and trust in yourself.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

You have the ability to make it work out.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Well, and I think that's one of the things in coaching. I mean, that's what we are trained, right? We are trained by like right now, we are bringing a group through level one and a soon-to-be level two through the International Coaching Federation. And if you really think about it at the cuts of everything, is the definition of that is that you we are, we as coaches are meant to meet the clients who are whole, resourceful, and knowledgeable. We are just meant to help them see that with great questions and have the trust. And have the trust that they're gonna figure this out and that it is our job to help them have really good, insightful questions to come to the answers and conclusions themselves. And for some of them, and some of those calls, you may feel a little dark and cloudy and not have that right clarity. But as you move through the process and you give yourself permission to not be like, what do you think? Right. So many of us are like, Well, what do you think? Well, what do you want to do? Well, what and we're putting our trust in everybody else's tugboat, whereas we need to be able to put that back, being like, you know, let me just zoom out on this. And that's what for me, what I think clarity is, is like it's how do you zoom out in your life and kind of just like take. I we love a life wheel. I love life wheels. And you know, like I do, I love a life wheel, and here's why, and I like to do it quarterly. It's just a great exercise. So a life wheel is not something I created. It's there, it's like everywhere. If you, if you were to, you can we've definitely made one that matches Lumina and and what we believe is our principles and what we really believe has been successful in business and leadership and all those things, because there's different modalities, but we've kind of distilled out what we think is really, really important, you know, when you're wanting that high level of performance and that high level of agency and that high level of business growth and development. But it's actually if you're not auditing where you're at, you're not clear. And I always say it's like, look at this with a lens of like, oh wow, you know, I'm, you know, you you look at where you're at, say in a relationship, for example, or you look at where you're at, maybe in your physical health, and you say, Oh no, I value, I I I value that I'm a fit, healthy person. But if you look back at your schedule and you've worked out one time this week because you haven't negotiated that time in your schedule, there's an imbalance there. And that's where the cognitive dissonance comes from a leadership perspective. It's like, if that's a value, you know, one of the things I had a great mentor that told me, he's like, show me your schedule, Kim, and I'll show you your bank account.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I was like, and firstly, I was like, absolutely not. But that goes back to clarity. Not showing you my schedule.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So it's like if we were to look at your schedule, right? If we were to come in and we were gonna be doing coaching with you and we were to say, okay, show us their your schedule for the last four weeks, would we know your values? Would we know what your values are, right? So if your values are a high values family, is your family scheduled into your into your calendar, right? And do you miss those meetings? Do you miss those dinners, you know? And it's like those, and it's not a good thing or a bad thing. It's just an observation for you to be able to say, you know what? I'm in a season of building. I'm gonna actually now say, Hey, Sunday night dinner, non-negotiable guys.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

But Mondays and Tuesdays, I got an amazing Uber Eats for you. Because you're still meeting them where they're at. You're not disappointing you, and you're in a season. There's a way you can balance and you can still show high value in a season of building, but you have to make sure that's an integrity with yourself. And that's clarity to me. Like that's really clarity. But if you're not zooming out to kind of look at all those aspects, and you know, and if you if you let listen to our last episode, you'll re we were we talked about energy, what's energizing or draining? The same thing happens in your clarity. And do you feel like you can find that in the darkness?

SPEAKER_00 11:11

The draining and the darkness. Well, you mentioned a season of building, and as soon as you said building, that's when I go to darkness because I have the tools to build and I know how to frame and get the house together. But I what I have have had to do and have done is take danger out of the darkness. Go back to the basement. Which five-year-old ever got murdered by the boogeyman in a basement?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

None, none, everyone thinks it's anxiety right now running up the stairs.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

So you have to understand that you're safe in not knowing, but you have you believe in your own toolkit to venture forward, yeah, and that remove the danger from the darkness, and just you know, listeners are listening right now who have that feeling in their stomach like I don't know the way that Kim and Kyle know. And here's here's the truth. I I don't know. But I'm just moving forward, moving forward, make it better, think about it, build, and and one day you will look and you will know.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

And I, you know, I not to belabor the silence of the lambs, but she moved forward and the window got shot out, and the light filled the room, and the movie ended the way it was supposed to, yeah, because she moved in the dark. And if she stood still, she would have I think she would have got shot. I'm misremembering the movie, but the window got shot. Yeah, and that have that faith that the window's gonna get shot out for you, the light's gonna fill in, and you don't need you don't need the light right now. Enjoy the darkness.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

You know, I love that Leonard Cohen quote. It's like, look for the what is it? Now I'm okay. We're gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Are you thinking of Bruce Coburn?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

No, I'm thinking of Leonard Cohen. It's that's where the light gets in. Look for the okay, look for the crack in everything because that's where the light gets in.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Now, can I give you a Bruce Coburn that we're gonna go? Gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight from Lovers in a Dangerous Time. That this is they're that just summed up. Yes, kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight. Oh, I think you should sing it here. I think this should be. I'm not saying I can't believe I just came back close to you.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

No, I did you hear that? I heard that. I think we all need to just highlight that.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

This should be the name of the episode. Like, fuck keep kicking at the darkness.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Yes, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

That's all you can do. Yeah, that's great. Kick again and kick again. And I Monday morning, it's not not good for me sometimes because I get in my own head, but then by lunchtime, I've had my sandwich and I'm kicking at the dark. Yeah. Kicking at the dark, and I'm gonna keep kicking, and and I I have the faith that the kicks will reveal the light, and there's your clarity.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

And that's so powerful. And you know, the I live on the opposite of that. And I think for me, I lived so much in darkness that I say more.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 14:14

I yeah, like I lived, I lived in what felt like a really I I lived in victim. I lived in like hard Oh, actual dark where I felt and not darkness.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

But make the you should make that distinction. Not dark there is a negative to the dark.

SPEAKER_01 14:29

There is a negative to the darkness, and I like this because it's like it's interesting because for me, I would like run in the other direction. We started because I love the dark. There's lessons in the dark. We have to have the duality of the dark to see the light. That's right. You have to, and that's this is an important conversation right now. It really is, and I'm grateful we're having it. And I think these are brave conversations, and I think that there's bravery in being honest, and I think that's why I like you know, if you've been around for a while with me, I'm always like, chase the light, live in the light. That to me felt safe. I really appreciate what you just said about take the danger out of darkness.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

That because you know there's no danger there, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

But I right, but in my head, it's still like it still felt dangerous. So it's an example could be, or a metaphor could be it's like you're not being chased by a lion. But we often give the lion so much power that's coming behind us that we can just turn around and put that in the cage. You put it in the cage, and then you're it's not even there. 100%. But we we spend so much of our life and clarity in that and conviction and confidence in who you are, in how you show up, in owning your energy, in leading yourself, gives you the permission to step into that. And you you mentioned a really good point. And actually, my executive business coach tells me this all the time, you know, and she coaches gosh a plethora of very high, high profile people, so much that she's NDA'd and never I can't know any of them because it's too high level. But she said, no one knows what they're doing. I'm gonna say it again, no one knows what they're doing. I'm gonna give a big nod out to Sarah. She's absolutely one of my greatest mentors, Sarah. And you know, one of the other things she said, and this is really helpful, and I remember sharing this with a mom, and she said, Kim, she said, you know, she's an incredible psychologist as well as an executive business coach. She said, You're gonna get three grand slams with your kids. And the rest, like you're gonna hit home runs, and they're gonna remember those home runs. And the rest, you're getting a first base, you're gonna maybe hit an air ball, but you're not, you you hit those three grand slams and you are making a pathway for an exceptional child. And and it makes me emotional because I think how much of us could just remember, if we can remember like in the dark, like you're gonna get a grand slam in the dark, you're gonna get you're you're gonna get a grand slam in the dark. And and it's okay you don't know your next step, but you know your next best action of integrity. And then you might hit an air ball, but you're on your way to the grand slam. And and that is clarity in the darkness and in leadership of the faith, of just believing in your mission and your vision and knowing it, no matter if anyone, if Karen or Sally or these poor names, I love them all. There's no examples of them, but just the names of saying that idea is terrible. It's like that's not, it wasn't, it wasn't their idea. Of course, they're gonna give me fear. And I never take advice from someone that hasn't done what you're wanting to do. Ever. Love that. You want to go build a million-dollar business? Certainly do not be taking advice from someone who doesn't even make six figures. That's right. Sorry. Like just let's snap out of that and really start thinking who's your agency, who's on your bench. There's clarity in that too.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Another way to frame the dark darkness can be considered worry, right? Like I was a worrier for a long time. I wasted a lot of time working.

SPEAKER_01 17:49

Wow, that's good. We're bringing this up.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

So uh we talked about the clarity of me turning around to look at the past, so that's clear. Yeah. But if I could go and take a photograph of myself today and hand it to myself when I was 20, yeah, and remove all that worry in that one instant where I went, oh, that's where this is going. That's clarity, but it keeps the darkness in between and would give me the freedom to not worry about where I was going and just keep stepping forward because I know, oh, I saw that guy who's 49. I know this is good. Yeah. So just have that same faith and keep stepping forward. I don't know. I don't, I haven't seen the picture of the guy who's 59, but I bet it's gonna be fucking cool. And I can't wait to make it through 10 years of darkness to go, this is a picture of the that this is a picture I would have given myself.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

I love that. And on the alternate to that, for those of you that live saying, I want to visualize that clearly, and I picture her and I know what she's wearing, and I know how she moves, and I know how she wakes up. My eyes are closed, like I'm not there yet, but like, and I see her in her collared pop shirts, and like, you know, and she's so, you know, like poised, and it's like and how did she get like that? Yeah, uh she got like that by just showing up.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

She decided.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

She decided today to be there and to put her name in the ring. And I love it, and I think we can end it on this, right? It's I love it. It's the the man in the arena, right? It's like, gosh, if you are in the ring and you are on the floor, there's a lot of fans up there that are chirping about what the players are doing. But the players are the ones that are playing the game.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So do you want to be a fan?

SPEAKER_00 19:35

They decided.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Do you want to be a player? Where are you at? You know, in this all of this. And, you know, I think this is just the cusp of many great conversations on this, but our aim and our goal is to help us have these conversations that are a little bit provocative or deep and challenge where you're growing. Because I think that's the only way we're gonna figure out what legacy we leave.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Love that. I like what you did with sports there twice. Sports is darkness. Every player gets on the field and has no idea what's gonna happen, who's gonna win, who's gonna be better, they still play.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yeah.