LEAVE IT BETTER

Karen Kenney: 00:00:01

Hey, welcome to the Karen Kenney show. I'm super duper excited to be here, and today I'm going to dive into Okay, let me start here. Let me still be back.

Karen Kenney: 00:00:16

Okay, so you know how I end every show with some version of wherever you go leave yourself and the people in the place and the animals in the environment better than how

Karen Kenney: 00:00:29

you found it right wherever you go, may you be a blessing, or may you and your energy, or whatever, be a blessing, your presence be a blessing. And I want to dive into this

Karen Kenney: 00:00:43

concept of leave it better, leave it better. And I want to talk about why this matters, and the kind of impact that you consciously choosing to leave a place or a people or an

Karen Kenney: 00:01:00

animal or whatever, better than how you first encountered it. What an incredible, powerful practice that is, but also what a difference it can make in the lives of

Karen Kenney: 00:01:12

people. So I'm going to share a couple of things that have been on my mind, you know, and it's so interesting that when things in my life happen in what I might call a

Karen Kenney: 00:01:21

cluster, right? Like, where several, several little, they could be random stories or people or whatever. But you know, when they come together with a common theme, I always

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know, like, I just feel in my hat of hats, like, Oh, this is my s, t, o, t, J, right, spiritual team on the job. This is my spiritual team just kind of giving me enough

Karen Kenney: 00:01:47

instances that my thick brain picks up on, like, Oh, this is something I might want to talk about. So thank you to my divine helpers for helping me. Okay, so this whole

Karen Kenney: 00:02:00

leave it better. I'm going to share the different little glimmers or glimpses or pieces that happened that inspired me to do a whole episode about this. Okay, so you may

Karen Kenney: 00:02:14

have heard me on other episodes. In fact, I'm laughing. I wasn't even thinking about this, but I just looked down. So I'm wearing all day running company, right? That's my T

Karen Kenney: 00:02:23

shirt. I'm wearing a yellow T shirt with white lettering, if you're listening and not watching, and it says all day running on it. And all day running is a company that Jesse,

Karen Kenney: 00:02:32

itzla is a Patna in. And all day running, they sell GIA, and they do events. They do this one big event called Running Man, it's really fantastic. And I just adore Jesse.

Karen Kenney: 00:02:44

I'm in a program with him, a year long program, because he, first of all, he cracks me up. I love his energy. I love his enthusiasm. I love his attitude. So just

Karen Kenney: 00:02:54

like I always say to people, I think coaches should hang out with other coaches, and mentors should have mentors, and I think people should invest in themselves and

Karen Kenney: 00:03:04

invest in their education. For me, what I really tend to invest in is being able to experience how another person's brain works, to be able to experience another person's

Karen Kenney: 00:03:17

POV their point of view. I think it's really powerful, and that's why I like to invest in a program or whatever is to go like I want to know how they're thinking. I want to see

Karen Kenney: 00:03:27

how their brain and their mind works and what their approach is. So anyway, so I'm in just Jesse's round table, and it's so funny. One of the other reasons why I joined

Karen Kenney: 00:03:37

Jesse's round table is that I had a program called the alchemy. You guys know that I'm obsessed a little bit with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. So in my

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program, like last year, when I did the alchemy in the round table, and then Jesse, all of a sudden came out, and he's like, Oh, I'm doing this thing called the round table.

Karen Kenney: 00:03:56

I'm like, oh, again, sto TJ, I was on that sucker. But the reason why I'm talking about Jesse so much is that he also is partners with this other guy named mock and they do

Karen Kenney: 00:04:07

an event called 29 oh, 29 which is basically, they rent a mountain somewhere. It could be, you know, like a ski. Think about, like, where we go skiing in New

Karen Kenney: 00:04:17

Hampshire, right? They'll find, like, the highest mountain that is like, has a ski lift and stuff like that. And they do this incredible event where people have to summit

Karen Kenney: 00:04:26

the mountain the same amount of times, like up and down. They ride the gondola down, but they hike up it. They walk up it as many times to equal as if they are summoning

Karen Kenney: 00:04:37

mount Emory's, which is 29 oh, 29 and they have to climb that altitude or do that enough times to equal that, and they have to do it in 36 hours. Okay, so because Jesse is

Karen Kenney: 00:04:49

Patton is with so it's he and mock, and they created this event, and in Jesse's program that I'm in, mock was one of the guest speakers. And the reason why I'm bringing

Karen Kenney: 00:04:59

him up. What I loved, something that Mark had to say that really points to this leave it better that I'm diving into today. And he was talking about how in his company,

Karen Kenney: 00:05:11

because Jesse's kind of like, I don't want to say he's a silent partner, but he's a non operational partner, right? And one of the things that Mark was saying is that he has

Karen Kenney: 00:05:20

created a culture the way that he in his own life. And of course, the guy's not perfect, and he admits this, but he really does his best in his business, in his company, in his

Karen Kenney: 00:05:31

culture and in his own life. He has this attitude, this culture of what he calls, quote, unquote, care the most, care the most, and so he wants to leave his clients,

Karen Kenney: 00:05:44

his customers, his co workers, his team members, the people that he hires, the people that he works with. He wants to leave them with a sense of being cared for and

Karen Kenney: 00:05:55

like who doesn't want to have that experience. And I think it's one of the things that I find so lacking in a lot of businesses these days and a lot of companies

Karen Kenney: 00:06:07

and a lot of places that I go to, whether it's the grocery store or target or whatever, and I'll get into that in a minute. So I'm really loving the idea, this

Karen Kenney: 00:06:18

idea of caring the most, and I want to give you a couple of examples and why I'm talking about this as a spiritual principle and as a spiritual practice. And I think it's

Karen Kenney: 00:06:30

something that every single one of us that is listening can apply in some way in our lives. So always, I don't tell you what to do or what to think. I mean, sometimes I

Karen Kenney: 00:06:42

might tell you what to do, meaning, if I'm teaching a tool or something like that, but for me, this is more interesting, and me just kind of planting seeds and dropping

Karen Kenney: 00:06:50

some things and having you decide which ones you might pick up and use, or which one resonates with you, or which one you think. Like, oh yeah. This could be wicked helpful

Karen Kenney: 00:06:58

to me in some way, and I want to apply this. Suck up. Okay, so I'm going to give you a couple examples. So my my veterinarian, my vet, Dr Jim mccannon. I call him. Dr Jim so.

Karen Kenney: 00:07:13

Dr Jim Great Bay Animal Hospital. So he's been our veterinarian. He's been my veterinarian, I should say, for like, 28 years. And I love him. I love him, and he is

Karen Kenney: 00:07:23

an hour away from me, and yet we drive. I mean, when you think of all the animals I've had over the years, I mean, he's been my guy, right, and now he's our guy, and he and

Karen Kenney: 00:07:35

his team, I have always been so fantastic. And Dr Jim is a guy that I know. He cares about me, he cares about my animals, he cares about my furry kids, right? And he

Karen Kenney: 00:07:48

goes above and beyond. And recently, some of you may know that we recently had to say goodbye to one of our furry kids, peanut. And little peanut was just the happiest,

Karen Kenney: 00:08:01

sweetest little guy, and saying goodbye to him was so brutal. But Dr Jim and his team, you know, the way that they helped us kind of, first of all making that decision, and

Karen Kenney: 00:08:11

then the day of, and having to do the whole process and stuff like that, that above and beyond is already, is already wonderful. And the way that they like, they have a separate

Karen Kenney: 00:08:21

room for that kind of procedure, where it which has its own entryway. So you're not having to like, walk through, you're not having to, like, walk through the waiting

Karen Kenney: 00:08:32

room with like, snot and tears running down your face and have everybody looking at you, and they do this thing where they light a candle. They light this little light to let

Karen Kenney: 00:08:40

the other people in the waiting room know that, you know, somebody in their care is saying goodbye to a beloved a beloved furry friend. So it's just so thoughtful. And

Karen Kenney: 00:08:51

there's so much care put into that, but just his level of care in general was amazing. And then afterwards, you know, they they give you, they'll say, you know, do

Karen Kenney: 00:08:59

you want us to, you know, send you a little paw print in clay. And some people will use that where they bury ashes, or they do whatever. But they sent us in the mail. I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:09:09

going to hold this up so if you're not watching, you're not going to see but they sent us these little paw prints like, Oh, I'm going to try not to stop, all over my

Karen Kenney: 00:09:19

microphone. Oh, my God. So they sent us this little his two little paw prints, and they say right and left, and you can see them in ink. It says little feet. And the thing

Karen Kenney: 00:09:32

about peanut is he his feet look like he was wearing little Spats. He had like, you know, black little feet with white on them, little tap shoes. And he would get so impatient,

Karen Kenney: 00:09:43

because he loved to eat. So when he wanted you to hurry up and feed him, he would like rock back and forth and tap his feet. And I would call it tippy tappy. He would do tippy

Karen Kenney: 00:09:51

tappy with his feet. So just seeing this, getting this in the mail, they mailed us this beautiful little thing, and then they also sent us, you guys. And I'm holding up

Karen Kenney: 00:10:00

this tiny little vial. It's this tiny little glass tube with a little cork stopper, and inside is his hair and like, oh my god, oh my god. I got that in the mail, and I just

Karen Kenney: 00:10:12

thought I was going to fall over, because it's so kind and it's so thoughtful. Because when you're saying goodbye to them. You know, there's, there's so much like, yeah,

Karen Kenney: 00:10:22

of course, you can keep their callers, and you have certain things, you know, their favorite toy, whatever. But to get these as a, as an after, as a follow up, is just so

Karen Kenney: 00:10:32

incredibly thoughtful, okay, and the impact that it had on my hat. And, of course, let's just strip the emotion away from that for a minute. It's just good business. It's just

Karen Kenney: 00:10:43

smart business. Because it made me feel like, oh, they really care. And they sent a personalized cod where everybody who's ever Oh, everybody who's ever met peanut, helped

Karen Kenney: 00:10:59

peanut, saw peanut during his visits over, you know, 14 years. They all each signed it with a personalized little note about what they remembered about peanut. And oh, my

Karen Kenney: 00:11:10

God, it's just so incredible. And so it's just smart business too, because it makes you be like, yeah, these are my people, and they know my animals, and they care about

Karen Kenney: 00:11:19

us. And you see all the different handwriting on the cotton. It's beautiful. Okay, so it's just a powerful thing, okay? And then the second thing is, there's a

Karen Kenney: 00:11:29

company called chewy, and I want to share this, because these are companies that have a culture that show me that they care, and how we can take these principles from these

Karen Kenney: 00:11:39

businesses, but also apply them to our daily lives, because we all know, right? We've all, I think, been with in friendships, in relationships, with people who you can tell

Karen Kenney: 00:11:51

that they give a shit, you can tell that they care, and they go above and beyond. Okay, so there's another company called chewy and chewy sells, like, dog food, dog

Karen Kenney: 00:12:02

toys, dog pharmacy, like, whatever you you know, you order it through the mail. So we've been using them for a really long time. So you basically just go online, order

Karen Kenney: 00:12:10

the food, and it shows up at your house. It's fantastic. So Tina, because he had a couple of medical issues, he was on a special food he was on a special diet, so

Karen Kenney: 00:12:19

his food was very expensive, and it only, you know, you had to, we had to, you know, constantly order it, because he, you know, we go through, like, a can a day, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:28

blah, blah, blah. So we had recently ordered some of his food. And, like I said, it's not cheap, you know. And so when he passed, I was like, Oh my gosh. Now I have all this

Karen Kenney: 00:12:38

food, and we don't need it, and I don't want it to go to waste, and it's a specialized food as a pharmacy food, so I can't just, like, give it to a friend or something like

Karen Kenney: 00:12:46

that. So I called chewy, actually, I didn't call them. I was using their, you know, chat with a representative thing. And so I chatted with them, and I said, you know,

Karen Kenney: 00:12:57

what you can I, should I return the food? Like, what do I do with it? You know? And they said, No, just keep it, donate it to a shelter or somebody who could use this

Karen Kenney: 00:13:06

specialized food. Obviously, the cans and stuff hadn't been opened. And then they issued me a refund. They issued me a credit. And I just thought, like, man, just how

Karen Kenney: 00:13:17

incredible and how helpful. Because it's like I said, it's a chunk of change. It's not like, cheap, right? So you're getting that, and the woman or the person, right,

Karen Kenney: 00:13:26

expressed in the chat box how sorry they were. It was just so incredibly sweet. And like, a couple of days later, I had to order a supplement for scooter, right, for

Karen Kenney: 00:13:38

peanuts, for peanuts, brother, so I got this little package in the mail, and I thought the package was the supplements. And I thought, like, wow, that got here really

Karen Kenney: 00:13:47

fast. I just ordered this right? Like, how did this get here so fast? And I open up the box, and inside the box there's a card, and it says my name on the front, says Karen,

Karen Kenney: 00:13:58

and there's a little rainbow at the bottom. And I'm like, What's this? And you open it up, and again, it's this beautiful cod from the representative who I was in the chat

Karen Kenney: 00:14:08

with, and they wrote this beautiful little note about peanut. And then I see inside that there's this little, like, bright blue, like, almost like this midnight blue with a

Karen Kenney: 00:14:20

little rainbow on it, velvet pouch, and it's heavy, and I'm like, What is this? So I open up the pouch, and I look inside, and I slide out into my hand. I'm going to hold it up.

Karen Kenney: 00:14:32

So you guys, if you're not, if you're watching this, you're going to see it. But if you're listening, I want to describe this stone it. It like it fits perfectly in my

Karen Kenney: 00:14:41

hand. Think of it like the size of a really, like a small, not a tiny, little round potato, but like, think about like a golden potato, but like a small one, it's super

Karen Kenney: 00:14:50

smooth. This stone is so smooth and soft. And when I saw this, I literally when I opened up that bag and slid out. Whatever was in the bag into my palm, I burst into

Karen Kenney: 00:15:03

tears, like I burst into tears, so I'm holding it up. So they sent this little rock, and somebody has hand painted on this rock, peanuts name. And then there's a pink

Karen Kenney: 00:15:15

hat, and then there's another pink hat with white lettering, and then somebody drew an actual peanut on it. So it says peanut with a peanut, and it's like a little Memory

Karen Kenney: 00:15:25

Stone. When I tell you I saw this, I was so moved. I was so affected by the time, like, somebody had to sit down. Do you know how many customers chewy has like? Do you know

Karen Kenney: 00:15:39

how many people have, like, get food from them and, like, have animals that pass. And I'm like, Oh, my God, is there, like, a whole department of artists and creatives

Karen Kenney: 00:15:50

who sit down and hand paint these stones. I just about lost my mind, and I burst into tears, and my sweeties like, what? And I had put it back, I said, because I wanted him to

Karen Kenney: 00:16:01

have the experience of opening it. I said, Look at this. And he opened it up, and he came out and his eyes like wadded up. And I was like, Oh my god. Talk about caring the

Karen Kenney: 00:16:09

most. Talk about creating a culture for your customers, but also the attention to detail, the neatness of this, that the person who sat down to do this had to really take their

Karen Kenney: 00:16:22

time and give a shit about me and peanut and how we were feeling and our loss. And I just thought, Man, this is a company that's doing it right. This is a company that has an

Karen Kenney: 00:16:32

attitude of leaving people better. And that's the thing, how they found me in that moment, was sad and grieving and missing my animal, missing my furry, you beloved kid,

Karen Kenney: 00:16:44

you know what I mean. And how did they leave me? They left me so much better off, right? Than a few minutes before, I was like, wow. It really touched my heart, and it made me

Karen Kenney: 00:16:56

think also of a company called Sweetwater. And I love doing shout outs, right? And I hope you, I hope you take something from this video, also this podcast that you're

Karen Kenney: 00:17:07

you feel maybe inspired or enthused to do a shout out for some people you know, like whether it's on social media, or you send them a little note, or you send them a thank

Karen Kenney: 00:17:16

you card handwritten in the mail, because, I'm telling you, that feels fantastic and amazing. Old school, maybe you'll feel inspired to do that. But there's a company

Karen Kenney: 00:17:26

called Sweetwater that my sweetie orders a lot of his music gear from. And what they do that I think is so brilliant, is when you sign up with Sweetwater to work with them,

Karen Kenney: 00:17:35

you literally get assigned a customer rent a customer rep. And we have had the same customer rep for like, a really long time. And my sweeties, I think his name is Brandon

Karen Kenney: 00:17:46

or Braden, it's one of those. And so what Sweetwater does is, whenever they send you whatever you're ordering, it could be a pedal, it could be cables. It could be like

Karen Kenney: 00:17:56

a jack, whatever you whatever you're getting, right your podcast, like, you know, whatever thing your mic, they send you a little bag of candy in the box, and it's

Karen Kenney: 00:18:09

usually like a fireball, a root beer barrel, some Smarties, like, whatever, like, just like, you know, Tootsie Rolls, like, whatever it is, you know, some of them, you

Karen Kenney: 00:18:18

know, aren't vegan. So I, you know, we don't eat them, but, but my sweetie has, like, a sweet tooth, so it's great. He gets his little candy fix, and it's so cute. Okay,

Karen Kenney: 00:18:27

so one time my sweetie got a box with his gear in it, but there was no candy, and he was totally joking, because what always happens is, after you order something, they

Karen Kenney: 00:18:40

always follow up with you, and they ask you, how's the product? Do you have any questions? Is there anything I can help with? Just let me know. Like their customer

Karen Kenney: 00:18:50

service is next level. It is so good. The way they care about their clients, the way they follow up, the way they check in, they send you little snacks, right? It's like so

Karen Kenney: 00:19:00

fantastic. Any issue, you give them a call, they're on it. If they don't know, they'll get the answer for you, right? So my sweetie just jokingly, because the rep reached out

Karen Kenney: 00:19:09

to him and he said, How's the pedal, or how's the thing? And my sweetie, you know, wrote back and said something like, it's fantastic. It's great. Thank you. He's like,

Karen Kenney: 00:19:16

but I didn't get any candy in this box. Like, ha, ha. Like, just being funny, right? Because they they've built a relationship over the years. Whenever it is, I don't know

Karen Kenney: 00:19:24

if it's two weeks later, a month, whatever it is, my sweetie orders something. Okay, we get the box, we open it up, and I'm like, What is going on right now? Right now? I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:19:38

the kind of person like, I love to count things like that's not that surprising, if you know me so like when I created my sweeties um, tip jar for his gigs. If I'm at

Karen Kenney: 00:19:50

one of his gigs and his tip jaw is out at the end of the night, one of my favorite things to do is to count all his tips and to take all the dollar bills of the $5 the 20s,

Karen Kenney: 00:19:59

whatever. He's got and arrange them in the right order. Like, this was something I love to do as a waitress. Is like, Oh, my stack of cash as a waitress was always neat.

Karen Kenney: 00:20:08

Always denominate, like, always in the right order, always facing the right direction, right? That's like, a big thing with me. So I'm always like, Can I count your tips? And

Karen Kenney: 00:20:16

he's like, yes, okay, so I love counting things. So we get this box, and I open it up, and I'm like, what is happening? And so I'm like, I started pulling out these bags

Karen Kenney: 00:20:28

of candy, and I counted them, and I shit you not, he sent us like it was either 30 or 32 little mini bags of candy, just kind of like that Wink of letting us know, like, Hey, I

Karen Kenney: 00:20:42

heard you were following up. And like, that was his joke back to us. And I was like, oh my god, I love these guys. I love their playfulness. I love their sense of humor. I

Karen Kenney: 00:20:51

love that they send my sweetie sweets, you know what I mean? And I was just like, this is a company that gets it. They've created a culture of care the most, and it's so

Karen Kenney: 00:21:01

impactful, and of course, it makes us want to keep doing business with them. Okay, now, why this is important? You're like, Who gives a shit? Great. You had some great

Karen Kenney: 00:21:12

customer service experiences. Cool. Why does this matter? It matters because it's showing us that this is a company that doesn't just take their core values and, like, toss them

Karen Kenney: 00:21:24

around. Like, you know how people say a thing but they don't follow it up with their actions? You know how there's that dissonance, right? When you're like, well,

Karen Kenney: 00:21:32

you're saying you're You love me, but you treat me like shit, like you say you're my friend, but then you talk behind my back. Right? We have these moments in our life

Karen Kenney: 00:21:40

where we're like, Well, you say you care, but you know, all signs point to like, no or maybe not. So when there's a company or a person with that kind of congruence, it

Karen Kenney: 00:21:53

creates rapport. It creates trust. It creates that, what we call the know like trust factor. It's like I come to know that I can trust you, that you're actually going

Karen Kenney: 00:22:03

to follow through on what you say. You're going to do, that you actually care about me and the fact that I'm giving you my hard earned money. But it also applies you guys

Karen Kenney: 00:22:13

to our personal relationships, and when we are going to be in a friendship or an intimate sexual partnership, whether you are dating, married, shacking up together, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:22:28

whatever your situation is, your friends, your even like your siblings. Like, wouldn't it be nice if the siblings all kind of operated under the care the most culture?

Karen Kenney: 00:22:40

Like, what kind of a world would we live in if everybody kind of adopted the care the most? Because I'll tell you what, I'm going to share some examples where you can kind of

Karen Kenney: 00:22:54

tell that somebody doesn't give a shit, and they are the opposite of the care the most culture right now, I just kind of feel like in a lot of places, this kind of almost like

Karen Kenney: 00:23:05

this attitude of like giving up, of like, why bother? Of, you know, like not doing your best, and who cares. And one place, if you we've all seen it, I guarantee you we've

Karen Kenney: 00:23:16

all seen it. If you belong to any kind of, like, local public gym, okay, you'll see it in action, right? So most gyms, they ask as a courtesy that you wipe down the equipment

Karen Kenney: 00:23:34

when you're done using it, whether that's, you know, using a lat pull down, whether you're on, you know, stair stepper or the treadmill, whether you're doing like, low

Karen Kenney: 00:23:46

rows or a leg, whatever you do it when you and your sweaty ass, get off that machine, take a moment to grab they they supply it. They supply the paper towels. They supply

Karen Kenney: 00:23:57

the spray. All you gotta do is wipe it down. It's a courtesy, not only to the gym, but to the next person that's getting on the piece of equipment or using the piece of equipment

Karen Kenney: 00:24:08

after you and look it. Let me just be honest, some people's hygiene is a little questionable, right? I've seen people come out of a bathroom stall and not bother to

Karen Kenney: 00:24:20

wash their hands. I've seen people come out of a bathroom stall and not they wash their hands, but they make a friggin mess. They just put water and soap and shit everywhere,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:33

then they throw their like, you know, their their paper towel away, and it doesn't quite make it in the back. You know what I mean? Like people just leave a mess behind them,

Karen Kenney: 00:24:43

and I'm the person. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying I get it 100% right all the time, but by and lives, you can count on it. If I'm using a bathroom, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:24:57

going to try to leave it better than how I found it. I will, I will I go, gunk, gunk, gunk, get a bunch of paper towels and wipe down the sink around it. Because I care, and

Karen Kenney: 00:25:08

I don't just care about me. I care about the person coming up behind me, and I've worked enough customer service and hospitality jobs in my life to know that some poor person, I

Karen Kenney: 00:25:21

shouldn't say poor some person is going to have to come up behind all of us who are using this and clean up after us. So why would I want to make their job? Hannah,

Karen Kenney: 00:25:34

right? So try to wipe things down. But you'll also see people not putting their weights back, they unwrap a bunch of weights, put it in their spot, and then when

Karen Kenney: 00:25:44

they're done, they just get up and walk away. And I'm like, and it's so funny, you know what's wicked funny. You hit a certain age, and like, you hear the voices of your

Karen Kenney: 00:25:53

childhood, like, in your head, right? So, like, I hear things in my head, like, what do you live in a barn? You if we left the door open, like, you know, if you ever read

Karen Kenney: 00:26:05

out the door and like, you would just leave the door open, right? Somebody, somebody, usually, my stepfather would be like, What do you live in a barn? Oh, my God. Like, all

Karen Kenney: 00:26:13

these things come flooding back into my head, and it makes me think about, like, something else that my stepfather used to say, look, the man did not get a lot right.

Karen Kenney: 00:26:23

The man did not. He got so many things wrong, a few things, a few nuggets, golden nuggets slipped through, though, and one, one thing he taught me, in all of us, is he

Karen Kenney: 00:26:34

used to say, you know, don't do it half ass. Don't do things half assed, like, if you're gonna do it, take the time to do it right. And I really do believe that, and I really

Karen Kenney: 00:26:46

do stand by that and look, I get it. There's gonna be times when you're running out the door and you gotta slap a PB and J together, and you're not making yourself, you know

Karen Kenney: 00:26:53

what I mean? Like, you might leave some crumbs on the counter. I get it. I get it. But what kind of a world would we live in if people cared the most, if people left each

Karen Kenney: 00:27:04

other in the place, in the animals and everything better if people didn't do stuff half assed. How different of a world would we live in? And we can't sit around waiting

Karen Kenney: 00:27:14

for everybody else to change first. That's not how shit gets changed. We have to recognize when we recognize, oh, there's a problem here, that it's not like, oh, it's

Karen Kenney: 00:27:25

their problem. It's their fault. They have to fix this. Now in some cases, of course, yes, there are times when it's not your problem to fix. Like, you can't make another

Karen Kenney: 00:27:34

person get sober, right? Just as an example, like, they've got to want to do it, you know, they've got to want to do it for their own reasons. You can't make somebody change.

Karen Kenney: 00:27:45

Okay, I'm at Target the other day. This one was like, look, look like, holding up my hands, like, look, I don't know where to begin with this one, because I think it's a

Karen Kenney: 00:28:01

confluence of, like, of a lot of different problems. Maybe target is just having a hard time hiring people. Maybe they don't have enough staff. And I think it's a combination

Karen Kenney: 00:28:13

right of like, not enough employees, not enough people on the floor, maybe paired with some employees, not enough employees that actually give a crap,

Karen Kenney: 00:28:25

paired with a culture of people who are growing more and more entitled and maybe lazy and maybe like, have, like, I said, have kind of, like, given up. I don't know.

Karen Kenney: 00:28:37

I'm just going to tell you my experience and what it was like. Okay, so I'm walking through, and I noticed that there's these T shirts that and I got, like, I got a couple

Karen Kenney: 00:28:46

last summer. And I was like, oh, new colors, right? And they're usually cheap to, like, eight bucks or something. I'm like, Alright, I'm going to go check them out. As I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:28:53

walking over to the table, I am horrified, like, horrified. I don't even know if a single shirt, and I'm talking there's got to be easily, 200 shirts on this table. You

Karen Kenney: 00:29:08

know how, normally in a store that the colors will be separated by the you know, it'd be like, Oh, the red ones and the yellow ones and the white ones and the blue

Karen Kenney: 00:29:17

ones and the green ones and the tan ones and the black ones and the gray ones, whatever. And they're all folded. And at the top it's like, extra small, small, medium large,

Karen Kenney: 00:29:25

extra large, two, XL, like, whatever. And normally you would just go in and you'd be like, Oh, the pink ones. I love that one. And you'd go medium or whatever. And you'd

Karen Kenney: 00:29:33

pull your thing out. I go over and I see this pile of shirts and two things automatically, maybe three things, three things automatically happen. Number one, I'm

Karen Kenney: 00:29:46

like, What the fuck is going on right now? Like and when I looked around, I'm not kidding. I'm not even exaggerating. Like storytellers, we can sometimes exaggerate a

Karen Kenney: 00:29:57

little bit for a fact, I'm not exaggerating when I tell you. Do okay. And I try not to exaggerate too much, like, we'll say, like, Oh my God, it was like 80,000 mosquitoes.

Karen Kenney: 00:30:06

Well, no, it wasn't 80,000 but, you know, we're saying, okay, but I'm being, I'm being dead serious. I look over and underneath every rack of clothes, pretty much, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:30:16

There's like, three or four or five clothes just on the floor. It was like a bomb had gone off. That's an exaggeration. It was like something happened at Target. And I was

Karen Kenney: 00:30:32

just like, What the So first of all, I'm just like, What is going on? Number two, I go over and I'm horrified. I'm horrified for the poor person whose section this is who

Karen Kenney: 00:30:44

hasn't come into work yet and hasn't seen what has been left behind for them to deal with. And then another part of me kind of gets this hit, like, are they just

Karen Kenney: 00:30:55

completely overwhelmed over here? Do they just not care? Like, all these scenarios are running through my head, like, why is this happening? And then almost spontaneously and

Karen Kenney: 00:31:06

automatically, I start to separate the clothes by color, and I start to fold them, and I'm not kidding when I tell you I'm about 10 minutes in, when I realize I don't

Karen Kenney: 00:31:20

have all day to be solving this problem. Now, I'm not going to leave it worse off than I found it, but I can't fix it because I don't have an hour to stand here folding

Karen Kenney: 00:31:36

all of these shirts that I know a bunch of people are just going to first of all, because I don't work at Target, I said to my sweetie, I said to my sweetie, target should

Karen Kenney: 00:31:49

hire people like me as float is who just walk around the store, straightening things out, because I am like a person on a Mission, like I will find what rack that

Karen Kenney: 00:32:02

shirt came from, and I will re rack it on the right sized hanger, so that the size on the jacket or the shirt of the pants and matches the little tab on the hanger. And I

Karen Kenney: 00:32:13

will find the set. Was it in clearance? Was it their clearance? 30% off or 70% off? I will find it, and I will put it back in its home. I'm like, You should just hire like,

Karen Kenney: 00:32:22

little elves, little magical elves that come in at night and, like, put the store back together. But I realized, like, because that doesn't bother like, I get a sense of

Karen Kenney: 00:32:32

satisfaction leaving things better. But it dawned on me about 10 minutes in, like, some security guy on camera right now is, like, what is this what is this person doing? And

Karen Kenney: 00:32:44

I'm sure, like the other people there, like, what is going on? I just couldn't leave it the way that I found it. I didn't completely fix it because I didn't have the time, but I

Karen Kenney: 00:32:54

tried to leave it a little bit better. And i Furthermore, went back into the other area to the men's section, and there were five shopping cats. There was one person working

Karen Kenney: 00:33:08

the try on room, what's that called the fitting room. And they had a huge pile of clothes in front of them, and they were folding them. And I just thought, this is

Karen Kenney: 00:33:16

the hell that does not end for you. And then there were five shopping carts, overloaded, overloaded with shoes and hats and toys and clothes. I was just like, has just just

Karen Kenney: 00:33:30

become like the dumping ground over here in the fitting room. Oh my god. I felt so bad for that girl. And then every other section I went in, like, over by the water bottles,

Karen Kenney: 00:33:42

I'm like, There's a dog bowl. And over in, like, you know, whatever, the chip aisle, there's like, marinara. So, like, people are just like, what deciding halfway through, I

Karen Kenney: 00:33:52

don't want this. And they just, they won't walk it back to the section. They just leave their shit everywhere, like a trail, like, like, like, like a nightmare Hansel and

Karen Kenney: 00:34:02

Gretel just leaving, like bad breadcrumbs, like wherever they go. And I was like, oh my god, now we're coming down to the to the to the to the micro level of the individual. Of

Karen Kenney: 00:34:15

like, I'm like, Do people just not care how they leave things? Do people not think about the people coming up behind them. Do people not care about their own personal integrity

Karen Kenney: 00:34:25

and how they show up in the world? So this is an invitation. Like, you know, like I was just walking around, like, who does this? That's what I was saying the whole I kept

Karen Kenney: 00:34:33

going, who does this? Like, who does this? I know it sounds judgy. I don't mean to judge my fellow humans, but there's some behaviors that I just think like you're not really

Karen Kenney: 00:34:50

thinking about anybody else, and that, to me, is what gets us in trouble with ourselves and. With our friends and our families and our partnerships, our

Karen Kenney: 00:35:03

relationships in our businesses as a country, when we just don't give a shit about the kind of culture that we are creating individually and then within a

Karen Kenney: 00:35:17

family and then within a larger neighborhood, community system, this is how we get in trouble. This is a very slippery slope, because if you start to let shit

Karen Kenney: 00:35:29

consistently now, I know this extenuating circumstances. There are just times when you're in a rush or something's happened and I get it, you gotta run out the door, like,

Karen Kenney: 00:35:38

whatever. I get it. I'm not here like wagging my finger at everybody, but I do want us to slow down and think about like, what a difference it is for us as humans and

Karen Kenney: 00:35:51

our nervous systems when we feel like this other person, this community, This business, this this culture, this government, this group, these teachers, whoever actually

Karen Kenney: 00:36:05

care. They care about me and they care about how they're leaving things. They care about the environment. They care about these animals. They care about these humans. It's

Karen Kenney: 00:36:16

a very powerful thing. Now we can't control what other people do, but we can hold ourselves to a particular standard. We can ask ourselves, what kind of person am I, and

Karen Kenney: 00:36:30

when did I normalize leaving shit just everywhere and not caring about the person? And I know some of you. I know people. I get it. I lean a little bit more on one end of

Karen Kenney: 00:36:43

the spectrum, which is like, I'm the person who literally, like, makes my bed when I'm at a hotel, right? I'm the I used to work in the hotel, hotel industry, so I know what

Karen Kenney: 00:36:53

it's like for the housekeepers. So when I leave, and again, I'm not tooting my own horn, like I'm special. I'm giving you examples of like, the different ends of the

Karen Kenney: 00:37:02

spectrum, right? So when I leave a hotel room, okay, I basically I like, take like, if it's like, I'll take the comforter off. Sometimes I'll take the sheets off the bed.

Karen Kenney: 00:37:13

I don't always go that far, but I make sure it's neat. I do put all my towels that have been used on the floor, right? I wipe down the surfaces. If I try. I usually don't use

Karen Kenney: 00:37:23

the cups or things like that, but I put everything back. I put the Do Not Disturb sign, like back where it goes. I put the I leave the place. So when that person comes

Karen Kenney: 00:37:34

in to clean that room and leave a tip, right? Leave a tip, a gratuity, a little I see you, and I appreciate you. And I know this job is hot and you gotta put up with

Karen Kenney: 00:37:42

some bullshit from some humans who are entitled and they because people will say things like this, it's not my job. This is why they have the job. Like, that's their

Karen Kenney: 00:37:51

job is to clean this up. It's like, no, no, no. Their job is to make the room ready for the next person. But they don't want to have to, like, clean up all your shit because you

Karen Kenney: 00:38:00

decided to be a slob. So there's a particular standard we can kind of hold ourselves to that extends beyond just our own experience. As long as we're only

Karen Kenney: 00:38:15

thinking about ourselves, we are not creating a culture of caring or a culture that cares the most. And again, how different would it be

Karen Kenney: 00:38:26

for children, for humans, for the seniors and elderly, for animals, for the for the mountains and the streams and the trees and the environment, if we adopted a culture

Karen Kenney: 00:38:38

that cares the most, but you know what it would mean? It would mean you would have to slow down. It would mean you would have to slow down so that you can actually do a

Karen Kenney: 00:38:50

decent job, and so you can actually be aware of the wake of destruction that right that you are leaving behind you. And you'd have to be willing to take a look at your

Karen Kenney: 00:39:02

behavior so far, the good news is about humans, is we can change at any point, as long as there is air in your body and consciousness, right, in your mind, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:39:15

We can change even if we're only changing on the mind level, because all minds are joined, and if one mind changes, magic happens. Miracles can happen. So it's an

Karen Kenney: 00:39:27

opportunity for us to reflect on, am I a part of the culture that is leaving it better when I die? I hope that, you know, I hope that people aren't like, I'm so glad

Karen Kenney: 00:39:42

she's gone, because she just left a mess wherever she right, like, hopefully my being here, you know, I'm not going to say it was always a blessing for everybody, because I,

Karen Kenney: 00:39:55

you know, trust me, I've been selfish. We've all done things in our lives. You know, when we look back, we. Like, Ah, man, I blew that. I could have done that better, right?

Karen Kenney: 00:40:03

But hopefully we're leaving, hopefully I'm going to leave myself better. I've grown right? I've changed, I've done some work, I've thought about some things, I've I've

Karen Kenney: 00:40:15

made amends, I've apologized. I try to do things better. So hopefully I'm leaving myself better, right? Hopefully I'm leaving the animals better. You know, I mean being

Karen Kenney: 00:40:25

being vegan for like, over 20 years. It's because I don't want to, I don't want to participate in the suffering of my fellow my fellow beings who I love so much, who don't

Karen Kenney: 00:40:33

have a voice and who can't speak up and who can't say stop raping me, stop murdering me, stop slaughtering me, stop hurting me. Stop putting me in these conditions that are

Karen Kenney: 00:40:41

brutal. Stop testing on me, right? Stop burning me. Stop, you know, all the stop. Stop putting me in gas chambers. Stop all the horrible things that we do to animals,

Karen Kenney: 00:40:52

circuses and the zoos and like, ah, like so much, right? And hopefully, hopefully, you know, I'm leaving the environment better hopefully. You know, we can all do better.

Karen Kenney: 00:41:05

Let me put it this way, we can all do better. So this is an invitation where you get to ask yourself, you know, we're moving into the final quarter of the year,

Karen Kenney: 00:41:14

September, October, November, December. We have four months to kind of wrap up this year in a more mindful and aligned with our true core values way. So it's a chance to,

Karen Kenney: 00:41:26

like, check in and be like, yeah, have I been that person or just kind of throw shit back on the pile and back on the shelf, and I don't hang it up and I do it half ass.

Karen Kenney: 00:41:37

And, you know, maybe you don't care. Like, maybe those things don't matter to you, but it doesn't have to be about you. It's about the other people that you share the earth in

Karen Kenney: 00:41:51

the in the world with, because they all matter too. So I hope that in some way from me sharing the people like my little peanut rock, the people who get it really, really,

Karen Kenney: 00:42:07

really right, who go the extra mile, who go above and beyond, who do fantastic customer care. And if you know of a like, if you know, if you've had an amazing customer

Karen Kenney: 00:42:18

client experience, I could tell you a bunch, but these were the ones that were just clustered like they just happened most recently. But if you've had an amazing

Karen Kenney: 00:42:27

experience, I hope you leave a review for somebody. I hope that you do a recommendation or a referral for somebody, if they have been doing a fantastic job for

Karen Kenney: 00:42:35

you in some sphere, you know, in some way of knowing them, and whether it's like a friendship or your sweetie or a business or whatever I know, and it's one of the reasons

Karen Kenney: 00:42:45

why some of you may know that I'm starting a new adventure where I'm going to be working at a company, company called flexible. It's flexible assisted stretching and wellness

Karen Kenney: 00:42:57

studio, and I've been hanging out with the owner and the other people who work there for the past month or so. And, you know, when I was interviewing with them, it's

Karen Kenney: 00:43:09

like, I'm checking them out as much as they're checking me out, right? And one of the things I realized right away is that they really do care. They really do care

Karen Kenney: 00:43:17

about their clients, and they care about keeping the place, clean and tidy, and they care about, you know, their level of their level of care and their quality of

Karen Kenney: 00:43:27

interaction, and the way that they leave people better than how they found them. You know, they don't use those words, but I could see one of these principles that mean

Karen Kenney: 00:43:36

a lot to me in action, and it's one of the reasons why I decided to work there, plus it's wicked fun, and I get to get my hands on people. But anyways, like when I see an

Karen Kenney: 00:43:47

action, I like to, I like to call it out. So here's an invitation to care the most, you know, care the most, and leave yourself. And let's just, like, wrap, let's wrap it up

Karen Kenney: 00:43:57

just like this. And, Oh, before I go though, I just want it's important that I say this before I forget. So if you heard the the front end of my last episode, I was talking

Karen Kenney: 00:44:08

about the challenge, the 30 day challenge that I'm doing. It starts right Sunday, September 1. It's a 30 day challenge called The Good, the beautiful and the holy. It's

Karen Kenney: 00:44:19

going to be so much fun. It's only five bucks, and you get two live calls with me. You get a dedicated fun Facebook group for community and connection. You get an amazing

Karen Kenney: 00:44:29

like PDF. Do I have the PDF review? Oh, I do. I'll hold it up real quick for those of you who are watching, right? It's a 16 page PDF. It's so fantastic. And I would love to

Karen Kenney: 00:44:41

have you join us. It would be so amazing. And so if you want the link, just, just reach out, use my contact page on my website, whatever, and say you want the

Karen Kenney: 00:44:49

link, and we'll get you set up. A bunch of people have signed up, and it's going to be so great. And it's going to be a way to kind of change, you know, how we see ourselves

Karen Kenney: 00:44:56

and how we see the world around us. So I'm wicked excited about that. I. Also, if you want to show support to the show, obviously you can go leave a review. You can do those

Karen Kenney: 00:45:06

things. You can also use my new tip. Ja, and it's Karen Kenney com, slash tip. Ja, alright. Thank you so much for tuning in. I appreciate you so much. And as I always say,

Karen Kenney: 00:45:18

as I sign off, wherever you go, may you leave yourself and the other people and the animals and the environment better than how you found it wherever you go. May you be a

Karen Kenney: 00:45:32

blessing. Bye. Bye.