[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: The podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host.
[00:00:21] Speaker C: Today's guest is Chris Kenny. Chris Kenny is an executive coach to CEOs who believe that business can and must be a force for good. Drawing on over 35 years experience as a business lawyer, entrepreneur and strategic planning consultant, Chris delivers exceptional clarity, enabling clients to find effective solutions to their biggest challenges. Chris is a Certified Y Institute Coach. He has helped hundreds of individuals discover their unique Y operating system which explains the underlying motivation for our behaviors. By understanding an individual's why iOS, Chris's clients make confident decisions that lead to personal and professional fulfillment. Prior to his coaching career, Chris practiced business law at two international law firms. He grew and successfully sold a family business and served as the governing body president of a K through 5 charter school. He was the founding member of a startup and then built a successful strategic planning consulting practice. Chris's certifications and additional experience include Certified Coach Gravitas impact premium coaches July 2013 through August 2022 certified Y Institute Coach Certified why I'm sorry Certified Utility Search Conference Facilitator Certified Implications Wheel Facilitator Business Ethics Instructor, University of New Mexico Continuing Education Division. Chris earned his undergraduate degree in Economics cum laude from Georgetown University. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Georgetown University Law Center. Chris passed the Illinois, Missouri and New Mexico bar exams. He remains licensed to practice law in New Mexico. Chris and his wife enjoy hiking, skiing and traveling. They reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Enjoy the show. Chris. Kenny, Good to see you, my friend.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Hey, Drew. Great to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: It's my pleasure, pal. I always want to thank the person who introduced me to my guest. And I want to thank Suzanne Taylor King for introducing us indirectly through her idea lab. And there was coach's conversation. Suzanne Taylor King is one of the best coaches I've ever experienced. And we're in her community. Chris and I are, and I thank her for bringing in somebody the caliber of Chris into her community and bringing me in so we can meet each other. So there's a reason why we ended up in the same place. Chris and I thank you for bringing my friend.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah, STK is is fantastic. So.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. So why are you here? Here's why I wanted you on Chris, you know, in life, you know, and it's not a malicious teaching, you know, we're taught that life is linear, that if we do A plus, B plus, C, D is going to happen. Right.
Ultimately, life is linear until it's not. You know, we get an external circumstance will come in our way, and we have a decision to make. Now, I always think that there's three types of men. Now, we can be all three of these men in the same day, depending on our level of awareness. But man number one is the man who's got a ton of blind spots, doesn't see anything different, differently from the life he's living. He goes through life without any changes, and it's only on his deathbed he's got regrets. Right. Then there's man number two, where he notices the adversity and he sees the adversity as a barrier.
Life is doing this to me. I'm the victim. Everybody else is to blame. I don't have control over my life. Life sucks. I'm gonna keep it the same way it is. And then he gets the same regrets on his deathbed. Then there's man number three, who you are. The men I bring on this show. Who I am. The man who finally, at some point in his life, realizes he has a little more control than he was, than he thought he did. And he sees the adversity, and instead of seeing it as a barrier, he sees. He sees it as an opportunity to improve his life. There's something there. This is life happening for me. I just noticed that I'm going to do something different to become a different, a better Chris Kenny.
So I call that the defining moment. And there's defining moments for all three of those men. It's only the man number three who sees it as a defining moment in a positive sense and does something about it. I'd love for you to reach back as far as you need to reach, Chris. And it can be multiple defining moments that led you to who you are now. Reach back and tell us. Defining moment that got you to be the Chris Kenny you are now and what you've done with that to change your personal life. And then we'll talk about your professional life and see where it gets us. But I'd love to hear that story. Sure.
[00:05:28] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Honestly, Drew, I.
Rather than it being a defining moment, for me, it's been more of an evolution, I suppose.
So it's probably much more recently that I have developed, I think, the type of self awareness that you described for man number three. And. And you are also absolutely correct that I certainly live each of those three definitions that you described on a daily basis.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: So.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: So the work, I think, is to spend more time as man Number three.
And so, but to answer your question and just being.
I wouldn't be authentic if, if I weren't vulnerable and candid and sort of air some, some things about myself and my upbringing and my, not my upbringing, but my background and my. In my journey to where I am today that is not. I don't find particularly flattering of myself, but here it is. Right. So I, I grew up in a decidedly upper middle class environment actually sort of down the road from where you are. I grew up in a very bucolic setting in Colts Neck, New Jersey county.
And it's horse country. I mean literally where it's. Beautiful place to live. Yeah, I actually took my, my boys there one at one point when they were in their teens and they looked at me and they said, why would you ever leave here?
And it wasn't voluntary. My father worked for a department store chain and we got transferred out to the Midwest. But I digress.
So. But I never wanted or lacked anything. Certainly materially I couldn't get whatever I wanted. Don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm the youngest of four kids and, and my parents were very, not so much frugal, but they were conscientious about, you know, what we got and how much we got, etc. But, but I was not starving. I wasn't abused. I wasn't, I had no, none of that going on.
And so I moved to the Midwest and I felt very much out of place there. I had a New Jersey accent. I thought they all sounded like hicks. You know, it wasn't a good, it wasn't a good meeting.
And so. But here's what happened. I ended up.
I went to a Jesuit high school. And that'll be relevant here in just a second. I went to a Jesuit high school and had a. Read a book that really led me to where I am today that I'll describe here briefly. But. And then went to college on the East Coast. I went to law school. School. I got a job for working for two international law firms. A lot was going the way it was quote, unquote supposed to go for me.
But all the while I had this nagging feeling that I was living somebody else's version of me rather than, you know, living who I really was. But I didn't know what that meant. Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know who I was or who I was. I only sort of was following the footsteps of what I perceived I was supposed to be doing.
[00:09:26] Speaker D: Right.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Left the practice of law because it wasn't My calling came out to New Mexico. I had met my wife.
Her family is from here. I moved out here, ran a family business, then left that and started a company as an entrepreneur, went out and raised money and started a company that didn't. That didn't materialize into allowing me to live in the Cayman Islands for the rest of my life.
So. And then. And then I got into business. Strategic planning, work around the country, and then business coaching and consulting. So that's. So that's sort of my. My journey professionally. I am. I am. Debbie and I are still married. We just celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary.
Thank you. We've got two adult children who are both healthy, and despite my best efforts, they're reasonably happy.
So. So that's sort of the journey. A little bit of the journey. So all along, I've got this nagging feeling that something is not right. And I came across a quote by a guy named Thomas Merton. He was a Trappist monk. And Merton has this quote that says, you know, people may spend their whole lives climbing the ladder of success, only to find once they reach the top, that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
And, you know, what you can sense in that is the notion of regret. Right. Like, so that's kind of how I was feeling. I was like, I'm feeling like my ladder is. Is leaning against the wrong wall.
[00:11:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: And I thought back to.
At that point, this book that I read in high school came back into my consciousness. And it has a sort of a morbid title, but I'll give it to you because it is what it is. The book was entitled On Death and Dying.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: I remember reading that book in high school.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: Okay. So Elizabeth. Elizabeth Coover Ross did a. It was a research project. She. She interviewed people who were facing a terminal illness. And what you and I learned from that or what society was presented with as a result of the study are the five stages of grief. Yeah, Right. My takeaway was different. And this was sort of rattling around in my brain for years and years and years.
And what I finally came to and which forms the basis of my work now is that regardless of where somebody lived in the world, their cultural upbringing, their socioeconomic status, their gender, whether they had any religious or spiritual orientation or not, the people in the book who were looking back on their lives and trying to give it some meaning, we're wrestling with one or more of three critical questions.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: And the three questions, as I distilled them, that you won't find this in the book. This is my distillation of it is right. Did I become or did I live my authentic, true self?
Did I live authentically? It was essentially it. Second question.
Did I give and receive unconditional love in my life?
And the third, did I leave the world a little better?
Those were the three things that I felt that everybody in the book was really trying to assess for themselves.
And so now I came across another quote. I'm a big fan of quotes because they seem to have impact on me. So here's another one that sort of all this sort of crystallized.
This one is from Viktor Frankl, who wrote Man's Meaning. Right. So as he is finishing the manuscript for Man's Search for Meaning and Only. And I think this was only roughly 18 months or so following his liberation from Auschwitz.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:13] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: He was back in Vienna and he gave a series of lectures in Vienna. And this is what he said. He said, it is not we who are permitted to ask about the meaning of life.
It is life that asks the questions.
We are the ones who must give answers to the essential life questions.
And so the three questions that I gave you, I distilled from On Death and Dying.
[00:14:49] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Are what I believe are the essential life questions.
So I now refer to them as the three life questions because even though they came out of a book about people facing death.
[00:15:05] Speaker D: Right.
[00:15:06] Speaker A: It's all about putting your life into context. And so my work now is really all about waking people up.
[00:15:16] Speaker D: Right.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: To the fact that you don't want to wait.
[00:15:19] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Until you're at death's door.
[00:15:23] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: To answer these, you need to live intentionally.
[00:15:28] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: So that every day you can answer yes to these three questions about authenticity, giving and receiving unconditional love and having a positive impact. Because you do those three things every day.
[00:15:45] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: I'm an odds maker, I guess. I'm, you know, I'm a risk averse. I figure if I can do that more days than not, then when I get to the end, chances are pretty good I'll be able to say, you know, yes, well done kind of thing. So that is a very long answer to your question. I hope that.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: No, it, it does. And I would say from all of that, that defining moment, like you said, it was an evolution, that feeling in your gut that something's just missing, something's just off. You know, I'm living somebody else's or what, the life that other people want me to live and not the life I want to live. And that to me is. Is a defining moment that a lot of people don't Recognize that they are doing. I mean, you talk about 90%, by the age of 18, 90% of our belief about the world and ourselves has been formed for us.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: And many of us don't wake up and realize that until we're in our 50s. Yeah.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Let me add. Let me add just two other pieces to the story that may help this into, you know, why I'm doing what I am doing now.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: And again, it wasn't so much a def. There is a defining sort of period where I made a decision to move this forward. So, yes, there was a defining kind of moment, and I'll describe that very briefly. So one other thing that happened to me is that I became aware I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and.
And as you know, Drew, there's a. There's a gentleman here, a friend of mine now, who took Simon Sinek's concept about discovering your why.
And his name is Gary Sanchez, Dr. Gary Sanchez. And Gary made that concept actionable. And so I met Gary and we talked through it. And so one of the key moments for me was, was finding my why, my how, and my what, the three parts of what Sinek refers to as the golden circle. So my why is to create clarity. Like, I'm all about being crystal clear with people, with myself and with others, because I believe that when people are very clear, principally about who they are, they are able to make much more effective decisions for themselves and for the organizations they lead.
Second component of it, how I like to bring that to life, is called make sense. And what makes sense is all about is problem solving. How can we quickly understand what the issues are and figure out an effective solution? And then finally, the last piece, what people can count on me for, is what's called mastery, which is. Which makes me quite uncomfortable.
But what mastery is really all about, frankly, is the willingness to go deep on something.
You know, I'm comfortable with details, and I want to know nuances, and I want to be so. So for me, getting clear on my why, how, and what was another defining moment, because all of a sudden it was like, okay, like, I can be free to be who I am if I live into these three things in a genuine way.
[00:19:19] Speaker D: Right.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: Last piece of the puzzle was I had done strategic planning and coaching work with a. With a business partner who was actually like a second father to me. He was a mentor.
Great guy. Bill Moy is. Is his name. Bill was just terrific. Well, Bill retired a couple of years ago and. And left Albuquerque Etc. And I had a decision to make at that point. So this is the defining moment piece.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:45] Speaker A: My decision was either A, I would continue doing the type of work that Bill and I had done, right, strategic planning and coaching work, or I could choose to finally bring these three life questions into the universe. And so I made the decision to do the latter. I decided, you know what, I've been thinking about this for so long and I really feel that it's incumbent upon me I am being called to take what I've learned in my own journey through depression.
And I didn't share that earlier, but I've suffered from depression virtually my whole life.
And part of that depression, I think is my sense of not being genuine, not being authenticity. And so I made the decision to step into my own authenticity and to bring these three questions to the world because I believe that if people can get clear around their own unique way of answering each of those three questions for the themselves, yeah, they are going to feel much more in alignment with who they genuinely are and how they choose to be loving towards the people in their lives and ultimately how they can make a positive impact in the lives of others. So. So if there was a defining moment, I think it was within the last couple of years that I finally decided to step into this.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: I can see that, you know, Chris, and you and I are about the same age. Ideally we address those three questions at the youngest age possible because you have these 20 year olds where the prefrontal cortex has not matured yet, making lifelong decisions, married, kids and all this stuff before they have the mental capacity to make good decisions. Ideally, if those three questions are part of their life at a young age, growing up, that may help them, guide them towards the right being around the right people, doing the right things, loving unconditionally, all that kind of stuff. I think we all need that. And I'll speak for men, I'll speak for myself. I, I know at age right around age 30, a lot of we men think, what am I going to do? What's the rest of my life like? What's it supposed to be about? And then by 50 you're thinking about legacy. What am I going to leave behind? What am I going to leave on like answering your third question, leave, Leave the world a better place. I think the earlier that we can answer those three questions, the better we are in life rather than wait until we're in our 50s and having a defining moment at our age. You know what I mean? So I implore you to doing that and I'll do everything in my power to to get that message across to the younger generations, you know, which leads me to a funny, funny story. I want. I think I told you that before. I was. Couldn't sleep one night and I put on a podcast and happened to be Mark J. Carter interviewing Dr. Gary Sanchez.
And I listened to that whole thing. I took notes and everything. And then I connected with Dr. Gary Sanchez on LinkedIn. And in the course of our conversation, he asked if I knew you.
And I think that was like full circle. Beautiful.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: And I knew you were gonna be coming on, so, you know, I have a dream. I can coin it a Martin Luther King thing. I would love someday to be able to put on a virtual event, online event of having like, about. About finding your why and having Simon Sinek, Dr. Gary Sanchez, and you on a panel with Mark J. Carter and me, like hosting the thing. So let's make that happen because everybody could use to find out their purpose in life and be able to say yes to those questions.
[00:23:35] Speaker A: And. And you really can't. In my world, you.
It's. It's really hard to answer the second and third question. So the second question is all about giving and receiving unconditional love. And the third question is about impact. You know, it really.
I, I don't. I mean, maybe it's impossible. I don't know. I. It's certainly extremely difficult, it seems to me, to be able to answer questions two and three until you have answered the first one, until you have a deep awareness of and appreciation for who you are at your authentic best.
[00:24:17] Speaker B: Well, you know what? I'm going to agree with you there. I want to add something though, too, Chris, because first, you need to be your authentic self. And then that second question, the unconditional love means you got to love yourself. There are too many people who are not comfortable in their own skin and can't look in the mirror. And I was one of them for years until I was able to look in the mirror and say I love you and mean it without sounding corny. You got to be able to love and respect and trust yourself totally.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: You cannot give what you do not possess.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Exactly. And so I think that that's the really, the message for people is start caring about and loving yourself so you can begin to answer questions two and three. And in order to love yourself, you got to answer question one is a yes.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Correct. And so for me, you know, again, I mean, I'm a wide. I'm a wide coach. And so one of the tools in the toolkit that I use very early on with clients, it is having them discover their own unique why, how and what? Because, because once that's there and in front of us, then a whole lot of other things begin to make sense and fall into place for them. And, you know, and it's not about abandoning everything that you have done up to this point. It's about, it's, it's about stepping more confidently into, you know, who you really are and what matters most to you.
And it's amazing to see the energy that people develop for themselves or that they're able to tap into. The energy is always there. They're able to tap into it when they have this in front of them, when they've discovered this. And it is not the only, by the way that it is not the only mechanism by which, you know, one understands one's authentic self, but it is an incredibly effective, fast way to begin that, to begin that journey.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Well, I, I agree. And, and I think that once you know who you are and you can answer those three questions as a yes, it's going to guide every decision you make moving forward. It'll reduce the chance of human error in making the wrong or poor decision because you're basing every decision you make, your future on those three questions. It's a guideline. It's a, it's a following your own yellow brick road instead of the wizards, you know, and I, I think it'll help with decision making, which is the, one of the most important things we do in life is our decision making.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: So. Well, you know, Chris, I, I can confidently say that the audience has grasped the essence of Chris, Kenny and who you are and they're going to want to get in touch with you. So in asking you earlier the best way to get in touch with Chris everybody, and you shouldn't be surprised by this website.
So HTTPs, you know, the backslash two backslashes the dub it the number three, the three lifequestions.com. so we talked about those three life questions. So it's the, the numeral three number three, the three lifequestings.com reach out to, to Chris. Everything that we've talked about will be on that site and then some. And you know, I think you'll benefit from learning about who you are and there's, there's, you know, and what your why is and, and, and how you go about things. And I think you can learn that a lot of it from, from Chris.
Two questions. Chris, I have for you, final two questions. Okay, you're sitting down with young 7 to 10 year old Chris Kenny and you want to give him advice about life. What are you going to tell him?
[00:28:18] Speaker A: I think what I'm going to tell him would consist of a couple of things. First, you are loved precisely as you are.
No conditions, no exceptions. No, you're only loved if you're a good boy. You're only loved if you get good grades. No, no. It would be you are loved at the deepest possible level for who you are.
And I think the second would be pay attention to your gut feelings and recognize that you are here to experience life in its fullness. And some of that's going to be really positive and make you happy. And some of it is going to be really sad or painful.
But pay attention because everything, every experience, is meant for your learning and development and growth. None of it is wasted. None of it if you pay attention. So pay attention. See what lesson you need to learn from something. And I think the final thing would be, and this is quite personal, is that be more like Grandma Hunt than anything. So Grandma Hunt was my maternal grandmother who embodied for me like I was fortunate. Like I got to see someone who genuinely loved people unconditionally. She could talk to anybody about anything. And she always expressed a genuine regard for whoever you felt like the most important person in the room when she was with you. And it wasn't like affection being like hugs and kisses. No, no. It was the way she interacted with you. So that would be, that would be for me, as a personal thing because I can obviously reference, you know, and see, see my grandmother.
[00:30:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:52] Speaker A: So that would be what I. Those are the things that I would say to the 7 to 10 year old.
[00:30:57] Speaker B: I love that. All right, so switch. Switch hats. And now you're sitting down with young Chris Kenny, the young businessman, entrepreneur, and you want to give him advice about business.
Would you tell him? Him?
[00:31:09] Speaker A: I think I would tell him some of the same types of things. One of them being pay attention to your gut.
And the other is align what you're doing in your business with these three life questions.
So consider how you might design your business or your consulting practice in a way that would enable you to answer yes to each of these three questions on a daily basis.
And do not worry about what you feel you might need to get in return. Because if you give the best of who you authentically are in the world, the universe has a way of taking care of the rest of it.
[00:32:17] Speaker D: I love that.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Absolutely love that. Well, Chris, I want to thank you for not just coming on, but coming into my life. I can say we're friends and you're doing some really meaningful work for people. And we got to spread this thing to as many people as possible, regardless of their age.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Great, Drew. Thank you so much. I feel the same way. I'm very appreciative of STK for bringing about this connection. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the three life questions with your audience.
I look forward to, you know, having conversations with any of any of those folks who are interested and to our next conversation. So thanks very much.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Oh, it's my pleasure. All right, everybody, you go take care of yourselves.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question. Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second, because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my
[email protected].
feel free to also email me at
[email protected]. i'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.
