Boss Your Business - The Podcast

[00:00:00] Yvonne Heimann: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Boss Your Business, where I expose you to people that build the business around their lifestyle so you can decide one of those pieces to implement in your business, to build your business, how you want it. And today I got Kyle with me. Kyle, you are a four time business owner and current owner of Blue Shirt Coaching.

[00:00:25] I love the branding. Whoever is just listening to the podcast, he's actually wearing a blue shirt. You help business owners of faith, build better businesses, empower their teams, grow their leadership and increase revenue and profits through next level accountability. You have multiple coaching and behavioral assessment certifications, my love language.

[00:00:48] As a podcast host, author and creator of the blue shirt leadership framework, Kyle helps his clients be self aware, lead with [00:01:00] accountability, use growth mindset, and empower others. If you guys didn't catch that, it's spelt out blue just saying. Ultimately, your goal is to help your clients be more, do more, have more, and give more.

[00:01:15] Love that mission. You share practical insights with, from your experiences, wrapped in engaging stories, always an open book. You provide an honest look at business leadership and being a dad. Now, what I didn't mention in the didn't warn you. You have dad in here. You do have some dad jokes ready for the episode, right?

[00:01:38] Kyle Gillette: Oh, geez.

[00:01:41] Yvonne Heimann: I was just there. I came across dad jokes two days ago. So it was like the whole dad jokes.

[00:01:47] Kyle Gillette: Okay, so I have one. So I do have, let's see if I can remember. It was one I made up on accident or one of my kids made up. So it'll fit you actually. So do you? Do you know how to [00:02:00] say so you know how to say it, but some people don't, so do you know how to say?

[00:02:04] No, or do you know how to say nine in German?

[00:02:11] Yvonne Heimann: Yeah Nine nine is nine. No is nine,

[00:02:15] Kyle Gillette: right? And so so then we did that and it was funny. Okay, there's my dad joke.

[00:02:20] Yvonne Heimann: Oh, I love it. Yeah, it's I always used to tell When I tell German jokes, it's a play on language. Those were my favorite jokes in Germany. So trying to translate those is funny in itself.

[00:02:33] So I don't even need the pun at the end because me trying to translate a joke into English language is hilarious in itself.

[00:02:42] Kyle Gillette: Sorry, But have you seen the guy on, I think he's on TikTok, but also I think he's on YouTube and TikTok and he speaks French, English and Spanish, then he pretends to be like the universal language person.

[00:02:56] And he asks them to come up with how you would say the, how you would [00:03:00] say sheep. And then each language says how they would say it. And then he gets frustrated with the way they say it. Cause the French people say it in a stupid way. And then the English people confuse, cause would, should, could, and all that kind of stuff.

[00:03:10] It's a really funny. I wish I could say the name, so I can give him some credit here, but it's a really funny trope, I guess you could say.

[00:03:16] Yvonne Heimann: I need to find that. I love the whole language not just even with how we speak it, but also how we translate it. Where I watch translated movies.

[00:03:28] And it's, I'm like, this is not what they meant. That is a clear translation, but it's not what they meant. And I think the same thing is happening for us in coaching too, where you really need to understand the language the client speaks and every client is different. Every perception is different. Every yeah, we could spend hours on that.

[00:03:55] And it's just looking at your blue framework, especially with that, that [00:04:00] with that piece of self aware, understanding our own language, we're going to get to know that a lot today. Starting in the beginning, my audience knows this is my favorite question to ask. How did you get here?

[00:04:17] Kyle Gillette: Sure.

[00:04:17] Yvonne Heimann: Did you think you always going to do it?

[00:04:19] Kyle Gillette: No, I had no clue. So I grew up on an orange in California my history there was pruning trees, spraying weeds, driving tractor, driving quad, messing around in a 40 acres of oranges. And I worked from seventh grade all the way through high school in the that was my experience.

[00:04:36] And though I liked some of it, I didn't see it as my future. So I applied to be a business major. At Cal Poly, which is in San Luis Obispo, didn't get because, when you get an SAT of 400 and something in math, they're not so keen on letting you in on that. So then I applied to physical education, basically kinesiology, and then I fell in love with that and started doing that in terms of [00:05:00] going to school for that.

[00:05:01] And then got an internship and went, you know what? I don't want to be a physical therapist. It's not a fit for me. And then end of school, I was lost and struggling. I was behind in units, 40 pounds overweight, and basically being an adult is I was 22 years old and I was getting ready to graduate.

[00:05:18] I'm going, I don't want to be an adult. This is scary because college was fantastic. It was a ton of fun. And so getting into real life and getting a real job and doing something with myself was but fortunately. I had gone to India on a missions trip and there was a guy named John that was from the same area that I was from and he was working at a nonprofit.

[00:05:37] And he said, Hey, Kyle, we're looking for someone to come and live with these guys that are off track in life. And I'm sitting belly 40 pounds overweight, lost, struggling myself, and they want me to lead these guys to help them out. I guess I'll so I went in for the interview and it ended up turning into 3 different jobs over 9 and a half years.

[00:05:56] So I accepted the job. There's a story to that, but it will probably take too long. So [00:06:00] I said, accepted the job on the spot, which meant I would be moving out of my apartment and living in this place with 18 and 25 year olds that are struggling with drugs and alcohol and broken families and broken lives.

[00:06:12] And so this, green horn is coming in, supposed to know what I'm doing. And I ended up sticking around for a long time, lived there for a year and then moved in Pet resort position there where I ran the pet resort for 3. 5 years and then ran the program for 3. 5 years, as well. So that was where I got my mentoring and coaching for those 9 years.

[00:06:30] I got a lot of super intimate level of experience with that and then stumbled around in a couple other careers and then finally landed in the disc world. And workshops introduced me to real income. And then I went, I could go ahead and start a business. Started my business.

[00:06:45] And that was about five years ago.

[00:06:47] Yvonne Heimann: So I'm curious, looking back to this time of, Oh you want me to do this? I'm like, I'm still in the middle of all of it. Looking back at that, What's your [00:07:00] take on, Hey, I have to have this accomplished or no, I simply know where you're at right now and I can be a sounding. What's your take on that mentoring coaching? When do you get to help people?

[00:07:18] Kyle Gillette: Yeah, in that specific experience, what I realized is that men, especially, tell me stuff, they just tell me. They open up there, I'll give you a good example. There was 1 student there and I can say his name. I won't say his last name, but his name is Phil and Phil had been sexually abused by his father and his brother.

[00:07:37] And so he was basically, he was almost a mute. He just didn't say anything. He was also physically abused by them. So really rough background and he was 1 of, I think, 3 students when I 1st got there and so he's living there and I'm living there and I don't have that history in my background, but over the course of [00:08:00] time meeting with him and connecting with him.

[00:08:01] He opened up to me. He started speaking to me and talking to me. And began to get real with me and share a little bit more of a get open and honest with me. So though I didn't have the direct experience and I didn't have the life experience by any means in terms of the, my age, because he, I could create that trust and I had that empathy.

[00:08:21] He was able to connect with me. And that was the case with most of the students, not all, but most of the students. And of course, going forward into my coaching, you got to the know and trust formula and business. And so that natural ability, plus honing that skill over to about 10 years has translated very well into coaching because people, even though we're talking about business, your personal life.

[00:08:41] And your, whatever's going on with your family and your life fricking matters. It's impacting your business and vice versa. And so when people recognize that they can trust me and open up to me, then things shift quickly for them because they get to be real for the first time in some cases.

[00:08:59] Yvonne Heimann: [00:09:00] it's interesting with my mentors and my coaches, some of them are often really surprised just how open I am. And I'm like, it's like talking to my lawyer. If I don't give you the stuff that's going on, how are you going to get the full picture. I also know there is situation where that is definitely way more difficult to build that trust with somebody initially to be able to open up that way.

[00:09:28] So having the emotional intelligence, having the personality and simply having that energy to give somebody that trust is priceless.

[00:09:39] How does life slash business look like for you today?

[00:09:47] Kyle Gillette: Yeah, so this year my wife quit her nursing job and so yeah, so she started working with me full in June, and so 15 ish hours a week helping me out.

[00:09:59] But the [00:10:00] big thing is that, it's nursing is a six figure job, so that pivoted our family. So we're not, we don't have that now. It's just this business, but it gives her all this freedom to help me out, but more importantly, be with the kiddos, do the things that we want to do as a family. And she's not working night shifts anymore.

[00:10:15] We spend,

[00:10:16] Yvonne Heimann: Nursing is not an easy job.

[00:10:18] Kyle Gillette: No. And she went through the pandemic in it as well, of course. So that's, that was a whole nother story. But now every we spend evenings as a husband and wife. And until this year, she had always been a nurse. Three nights a week, she was not home.

[00:10:32] I'm parenting my three daughters without her, which is fine, it's I didn't have her for those times. And I still remember the first time we actually got to sleep together in the same bed for a week straight. After 13 years of marriage, we had never experienced that before. then besides it was crazy to have that experience to be like, wow, I get to be with my wife every single night for this many nights.

[00:10:54] So that's a big deal. And then for me, I, I'm working, but when I'm not working, I'm not. [00:11:00] That's what I try to do. And it's not always the case, but I try real hard to do that. And my is, spending all the time. On it. But for the part, I, at 2 PM at the latest on Fridays, I'm done working. Monday morning, I started eight o'clock every other day. It's around that And I try to end at four 30 and try to own, honor that. Sometimes it's earlier if I want to do something with my kids. So I really try to shrink my hours. I'm not that 70, 80 hour week. I don't, I love what I do, but I don't love what I do more than I love my family.

[00:11:31] And so to me, it's not worth it.

[00:11:34] Yvonne Heimann: And I, I love seeing the different approaches on I think all of my guests, we at a point where It's like we live. I don't think there is any of my guests on the podcast that is full on hustle mentality. Yes. We have a season like me right now with writing book. It's you know what? Right now it's go time.

[00:11:54] Yep. I'm working more than I'm living. But the [00:12:00] approach is to living is different where you are like, you know what I do really work to have that distinction between private and business, take the weekend off, spend time with my kids. And that might be one of the points where it's okay, because kids are also involved.

[00:12:19] When you started telling me about how you are structuring your week, my past guest, Jess Glazer came to mind, where they do not have kids yet. They do have a dog. But husband is working in her business. So similar situation as you guys have, she's you know We've tried the straight up separation of business and personal of we are done here and it didn't work for them.

[00:12:46] That's where I love bringing guests in and hearing those different takes and hearing the different ways of approaching things, because all of us have found our way of doing things and just [00:13:00] showcasing the audience, what works for us and why it works so they can choose what works best for them. So I'm like, I love it, especially, what Friday I'm one, I have to also be like, okay, girl, it's Friday afternoon, go have a drink. Only the house. Yeah. Close the laptop. Yeah. I'm one of those people because I, we love what So really being able for us to say. You also need a personal life with the kids.

[00:13:30] Kyle Gillette: Weekends are, they are for personal life. I'm still thinking you can't help yourself. You think about the business, but like weekends are there.

[00:13:39] They are for us as a family and evenings, my wife and I'll talk for a little bit about the business to dump things. And then we move on. It's like you talk about your work day, right? That's what we're doing, technically. But otherwise we're really our time.

[00:13:53] Yvonne Heimann: How do you structure your business?

[00:13:55] How are your office structures for you to be able to be like Friday afternoon? I'm [00:14:00] done. I'm out of here.

[00:14:01] Kyle Gillette: Yeah. I don't allow people to schedule time with me after I think it's 2 PM on my calendar. On Fridays, and then I don't let people schedule with me before 8 AM. or after 4:30 PM either. So those are, that's my window.

[00:14:15] And if you want to work with me in that window, If you want to work outside of it, if it's a 1 off, I get it. That's fine. But if it's a continual coaching relationship, I'm not going to do it. I don't, it's not worth it to me, because I don't want to get up at 3 in the morning because you're on the east coast and you want to coach at 6 in the morning.

[00:14:34] I'm not going to do that. I'm sorry. There's plenty of other coaches out there. I care about you, but I care more about my sleep and other things. So that's one that I do it to make sure that I'm just blocking time. I literally will put, if I don't want anybody to meet with for a networking conversation or schedule a surprise coaching call, I literally just put something on the counter that says admin.

[00:14:56] And then I know that they cannot fill that time because [00:15:00] it's blocked. And it keeps me sane because my goal is 10 hours of coaching a week with my clients. And if I'm doing 10 hours a week, that's really tiring. That's a lot of giving of myself. And so I need to make sure that the other spaces don't get filled with things that take more, even more from me.

[00:15:17] Cause then the client that deserves that from me won't get it. And that's not fair to them.

[00:15:23] Yvonne Heimann: And I think that's a big struggle of business owners, coaches, consultants, when we start out. We been there done that my schedule looks similar to yours, though. You don't get to schedule time with me before 10 AM Pacific.

[00:15:40] It's just not happening. But yeah, when we start Oh my God, we come in with this passion. We want to do all the things. We want to help all the people, but we don't think the implementation and the cost of it. If we give everything of us, clients are not getting all of us.[00:16:00]

[00:16:00] And I don't know if you have seen the image. I came across it over the last couple of weeks. I really like this from the face of pouring into other people, the visual they used is we are not pouring out of our cup anymore. I think it was a coffee mug or whatever with a saucer underneath it.

[00:16:17] We are not pouring out of our mug. We are only pouring out of the saucer. So make sure you are overpouring into your own mug first.

[00:16:26] Kyle Gillette: Yeah. Yeah. It's an overflow. I've talked about that before. Is your cup, are you overflowing or are you pouring out? Cause you're just going to end up emptying yourself.

[00:16:34] And then that's not good for anybody at all because, and you're not really providing the level of service that you could be to, to your clients, but more importantly, to the people in your life, to the relationships that you have. You're, if you're empty, when you get home from work and you're snapping at your kids or your spouse yeah, I don't know.

[00:16:54] That's not, it's not ideal in my world. So.

[00:16:57] Yvonne Heimann: No, not really. Fortunately, I have [00:17:00] one person on my team when I get again, like doing the book and all the things right now. I'm like, okay, just one ear in the other ear out. I just need a sounding board right now to get this energy out of me. And fortunately she knows that.

[00:17:14] And can manage that because when we get like this, our clients come to us to pour in them. They are paying us to get our energy, yet when we don't have the energy to give, what we do, we just pull up, pull the energy out of our clients. That's not what they came here for. That's not what they're paying us for.

[00:17:36] And they're not going to get the results we know we could give them, so this whole energy management is definitely big piece.

[00:17:47] Kyle Gillette: For sure.

[00:17:49] Yvonne Heimann: Tell me about your book because guys, I don't know. I mentioned my book a couple of times, but you just released your book just last month.

[00:17:58] Kyle Gillette: Yep. Came out last [00:18:00] month on the 15th and it got on the shelves yesterday.

[00:18:03] Yvonne Heimann: Yes, you're going to get the link. You don't have to remember the link. You get the link in the description. Your book is called Right Now Leadership. Do I got that right?

[00:18:13] Kyle Gillette: Yep. You got it. Yeah. Right Now Leadership, a four part framework for today's leader. Hopefully It is not mirrored or whatever, but that is the title of the book. So the book is about the mindsets and habits of the leaders of today. The mindsets and habits that leaders of today can have and probably should have. And so I walk people through 20 mindsets and 20 habits. Now, I'm not saying you need to have all 20 mindsets and all 20 habits.

[00:18:36] What I am saying is those that you excel at lean into those like crazy. And I give you practical insights and tips and stories and anecdotes and metaphors. Like I opened the book with the story of the three little pigs and how what kind of a leader are you? What kind of leadership house do you have?

[00:18:53] Is it a straw house? Is it wood house or is it a brick house? And that's how I opened the book to help people realize that [00:19:00] really the is a leadership house and I dive into what that means in the book as well. Go ahead.

[00:19:06] Yvonne Heimann: I the, I love that metaphor analogy metaphor. I always mix those up with the three little pigs. I might just going to have to go with that one, because we built bulletproof businesses.

[00:19:17] And I'm like, I like that one. I might just have to play off of that one. Going to get myself in trouble here. Totally stealing stories out of the book.

[00:19:25] Kyle Gillette: It's copyrighted. Wait a second. No, it's not. It's three little pigs. Everybody knows the story.

[00:19:31] Yvonne Heimann: I'll find, I like, how about this? I like the approach to this.

[00:19:34] Let's see if I can find another story that leans onto it so I don't have to steal your book.

[00:19:40] Kyle Gillette: There you go. Yeah. So in, in the book, I break down, I take that metaphor of the leadership house. And as you read in the introduction, blue is an acronym. Cause I, I run my business in life on acronyms. Like I have 25 acronyms that I. It's just how my brain works really well. But if you think about a [00:20:00] leadership house. Picture whatever house you want to picture. When I look outside, we have the shed and then whenever I share this, I'm looking at the shed and there's a foundation. We build a foundation underneath. There is there's concrete and then there's wood.

[00:20:10] And then there's the building. And in the case of anybody's leadership, you need to have that foundation and that foundation is self awareness. So that's the B in blue. Be a self aware leader. If you don't have a foundation for your leadership house, it's sinking sand and things are going to crumble and it's not going to work out.

[00:20:29] Even if you have a great foundation, you need to use a growth mindset or lead with accountability. Excuse me, lead with accountability in order to move forward in your leadership and help others. In the metaphor, leading with accountability is the nails to your leadership house. It holds it together. Without those nails, without accountability, things are going to crumble and we've seen plenty of businesses and plenty of leaders crumble and unfortunately crush those around them as a result.

[00:20:55] And then use the growth mindset is the walls and the roof, which is [00:21:00] very straightforward. It is, basically, when you live in a home long enough and when you lead long enough, you've got to replace the carpet sometimes. You need to replace the windows. You got to move the furniture around, paint the walls.

[00:21:12] And then sometimes you even add to your so this is the same thing with our leadership. It's shifting and morphing and the mindsets and the habits in the book are those suggestions on what you can shift and morph and improve. And then the E is empower others. And that is the windows and doors of your leadership house.

[00:21:27] Where people can walk into your leadership through that door, but they can also observe your leadership through the windows. And then people can be looking out through those windows as well, attracting opportunities to your business. So that's the simple metaphor that I use for my framework and how I really, the umbrella of my clients.

[00:21:45] Yvonne Heimann: God, I love that. And along those lines, you have something for the audience, don't you?

[00:21:52] Kyle Gillette: I do. Yeah. I, so let me describe, it's called a MOLO and MOLO stands for more of less of. In the [00:22:00] book, I think it's in the growth section. I think I talk about the MOLO, which is every week on Saturdays, I do my review time.

[00:22:08] Where I review my what went well, what gains did I get from the week? What did I want to see happen that didn't happen? I review my goals. I review my mission, my vision, my values, everything gets reviewed. I, I'm praying on it. I'm meditating on them. I'm thinking about it, but there's one specific exercise that I do that is the MOLO.

[00:22:26] And it's five questions and you pick a topic you don't want to do just anything. You have to pick a very specific topic for it to be as effective as possible. So last, I think it was two weeks ago, I picked marketing my membership. So I'm building a membership. And so I picked marketing my membership.

[00:22:45] And the first question is, what should I do more of? So what should I do more of to market my membership? The second question is, what should I do less of? And then the 3rd question is, what should I start doing? 4th, what should I stop doing? And then 5th is, what should I keep doing? And I've been doing [00:23:00] this exercise for 4 years.

[00:23:02] And so I have a record of 4 years, because I type it out. 4 years of reflecting on those 5 questions in various topics. The goal is when you're done reflecting, you have a maximum of five actions you're going to take. Any more than that, you're not going to do it. Let's be honest. We have long enough to do that.

[00:23:20] So you're going these are my top most important actions I'm going to take based on this particular topic and then I'm going to act on it. I'm gonna go after it. So that's the, I give you the tool to help you walk through that process, give you the questions and some ideas, what to do.

[00:23:36] Yvonne Heimann: Oh my God. I It's exactly what I'm already doing, but I don't have, I never actually put a full on framework together. So guys, you're going to find that link in the description too, as well as all of Kyle's, the book link, the social links, all the things. Now, before we send off the audience, tell them where can they best connect with you?

[00:23:58] Kyle Gillette: Yeah, I would [00:24:00] say probably LinkedIn is the best place to connect. If you just go to LinkedIn, find me there. And then of course you can visit my website, blueshirtcoaching.com and connect with me for a consultation. We can talk there and I'll help you out as much as possible.

[00:24:13] Yvonne Heimann: So as Kyle just mentioned, there's another link that's going to be in the descript. Kyle does offer free consultations to check. You can check in with him if you guys might want to work with each other. Now, if you have not listened yet to Jess Glazer's episode, this is a perfect follow up after this episode, and I'll see you there as well as next week again for another episode of Boss Your Business. Bye everybody.