From Fear to Focus: The Mental Game of Growth with Frank Bourque

Rob – Intrigue Media (00:32)
Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the IM landscape growth podcast. I have a wonderful returning guest who needs no introduction. Frank Bourque. Thank you so much for doing this.

Frank Bourque (00:42)
Appreciate being here. Thanks for the invite.

Rob – Intrigue Media (00:43)
If you haven’t heard him or heard of him, he’s a successful landscape owner who exited and now consults and coaches. I’m not doing it much justice because I know that there’s so much more to what you’ve been doing and helping landscape entrepreneurs all across North America and the community that you’re building. If someone wants to check you out, I’m going to let them do that. If they wanted to quickly, what’s the best place for them to go do that?

Frank Bourque (01:06)
at my website, frankbork.com. they can, if they’re looking for, just point me in the right direction, Frank, or give me some resources, or let’s chat for 20 minutes. That’s the best place to reach me.

Rob – Intrigue Media (01:17)
Okay, awesome. So go do that. Cause I want to keep as much time as possible to kind of go over what the focus of the conversation is. And we, as we were just talking briefly before this, Frank kind of asked me, he’s like, you know, what is it that you want to talk about? And was like, I don’t care, man, Frank, this is your, this is your show. Like, I’m just happy that you’re here and I don’t think it’s, we’re to be able to go wrong. And, and, and then he was like, well, we, maybe we can talk a little bit about mindset. And I think it’s kind of a really cool time of year to do so.

for lot of reasons. But what’s also really interesting for all the people that have been listening to this show, we hear time and time again, what’s the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry and as the leader. So why don’t we just break out this whole mindset thing? Like, what do you mean? Let’s get into it and let’s see if we can figure it out.

Frank Bourque (01:58)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Last time we met, we talked about systems and it’s ⁓ from, you know, sales and people and admin and production systems. I mean, systems are great. But what I’ve realized and come to realize, because I’ve started speaking on the topic at events is it really starts in one place. And if you don’t challenge that space and that’s the mind.

that mindset, the way you think. If you never challenge the way you think as an entrepreneur, you can get stuck in what I call like living the same year over and over and over again. So some people say, hey, I have 30 years experience in this industry, which is great. You you went through all kinds of different situations. But if you never grow as a person or you never challenge your mindset, you might be just living the same year over and over again with different problems, different challenges.

But if your mindset is the same, then you really can’t grow beyond that level. So as an entrepreneur, when I see someone who’s reached a new level of success, whether it’s better profit or better revenue or a better team, to me, I know their mindset has changed. Like for me, the biggest bottleneck in most companies isn’t cashflow, it’s not employees. It’s the owner’s thinking. And owners…

Rob – Intrigue Media (03:14)
Mmm.

Frank Bourque (03:23)
get sensitive when I say that, because I always say it starts with you and it finishes with you. And you can decide what kind of an example you want for the rest of the team, but you have to become that person you’re talking about all the time or the expectations that you have for your team, the results, the goals that you set for yourself. You have to work as hard to reach those goals or to show people, if not harder, right? And…

Rob – Intrigue Media (03:25)
Mm-hmm.

If, if not harder. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s

cool. just want to quickly break into that one. Cause, ⁓ what’s, what’s fascinating and to your point about like seeing people reach new levels and like, you know, that’s, it’s almost like evidence of what they’ve done in terms of the real world. And we see the different mindsets of different entrepreneurs at different levels. And, know, not all the same, but there’s like, you know, I, if you want to do it right, do it yourself. I can’t find good people.

⁓ if I only had, you know, one more person that could actually, you know, take some weight, then it starts to shift to like, you know, Hey, I want to train people. And then there’s like, they left and now I’m jaded because they started their own business as a competitor. And then there’s another mindset of like, it’s okay. There’s a world of abundance. Let’s help all people grow. If they end up starting their own business, that’s almost like the, the best outcome. Cause I’ve just helped start another entrepreneurial career. And then it just keeps going up and up. And then eventually you hear what I’ve

experiences, most successful people are like, they’re here to serve. They’re here to make people’s lives better. They’re trying to make the community better. They’re trying to make their teams. They’re trying to help them buy houses. And so like what kind of patterns are you seeing? And you know, how do people start to level up?

Frank Bourque (04:56)
Yeah. Well, there’s five big mindset shifts that I see from business owners. that’s like, it’s the habits that you create in your life, personal life. It starts with your personal life. When you get up in the morning, how do you get into your peak state? And if you’re not into your peak state, that’s gonna reflect on everything else that you do. Like what I mean by peak state is when you wake up, do you take care of…

your focus or are you into your emails right away? Are you ready for the day? Did you plan that day a little bit the day before so that your mind is not constantly running at night so that it doesn’t wake you up, right? What else do you do in the morning? Do you exercise to get your whole body knowing, okay, it’s a new day, you’re gonna get ready for it, your body’s ready for it. Do you eat well? Do you feed your body what it needs to keep you

at a peak state all day. And so some people say, yeah, yeah, but it has nothing to do with landscaping or contracting or being a business owner, but it totally does because you’re going all day with a body that needs to some energy. And if you feed it well, if you feed your mind with other things than just, you know, being on firefighting mode. So you take time to read or learn or journal a little bit.

So these are examples, but five big mindset shifts for entrepreneur are like, first one you’ll hear all the time, working in your business versus working on your business. So that’s a mindset shift because if you’ve never done it, all you’re hearing is, well, where am I gonna find the time to actually do the stuff on the field that I need to do and where do I even find time to train people? So again, your brain is, your mindset is, well, if I had time, I would do it. I’ve tried it before.

doesn’t work and you might fall into that trap. But if you block your time, if you set a mindset shift, say, okay, I know it’s not realistic for me to block three days a week, but I’m gonna make it my priority to block a minimum of 10 hours a week. My first, I go with what is realistic, right? But a timeframe that you can measure, that you can see, what did I do with those 10 hours? And those 10 hours have to be focused.

It’s incredible what you can do in 10 hours if it’s focus time, right? Another big mindset shift that I work with with business owners, because people think consulting or business coaching is just like, hey, give me the tool, I’ll use the tool and make me more money. But oftentimes, I feel like I’m doing therapy sometimes with my clients because I know I need to push the right buttons for them to get it sometimes. So the second one is,

Rob – Intrigue Media (07:12)
Mm.

Frank Bourque (07:35)
scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset. You just said that. know, there’s being in marketing, you can say, hey, listen, there’s business for everyone. You just got to find the right people for your business and we can help with that. Or it’s like everything else. ⁓ the economy’s, you know, we’re taking a blow with the economy. I just have to work harder or Jesus, it’s going to be tough. We have to expect everything to be tough. Or man, this is an opportunity to really communicate better.

Rob – Intrigue Media (07:47)
Hmm

Frank Bourque (08:03)
to get better at the marketing, which I haven’t spent a lot of time with, but I should. And now I’m gonna put more energy, more money into it so I can reach the right people. So I’m not wasting time. So that’s a different time. Third mindset shift that I see oftentimes with my clients is they expect perfection, right? Because when you start a business, you want everything to be really, really good for your client. You want it to be almost perfect, better than every other company. So you do it on your own.

Rob – Intrigue Media (08:12)
Hmm?

Frank Bourque (08:31)
you get some level of success and you think your business can only succeed if you’re in it, doing things for the client, with the crews or with the team. And that might be true to a certain level, but just knowing that you can’t grow beyond your mindset. So if that’s your mindset, you’ll never grow over a certain amount of revenue because it’s just gonna be hard unless you hire somebody else. Yeah, I always just, yeah, and then you hit the burnout mode, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (08:51)
yeah, you just stopped sleeping.

Yeah.

Frank Bourque (08:57)
So when you go from perfection to let’s tackle more like progress and momentum and let’s measure that. Let’s measure for having some progress or let’s build momentum. Because once we have momentum, it’s not as easy, it’s not as hard to get results because we’re already feeling we’re doing, we have good habits, we’re doing the right things and you feel more in control. The fourth mindset shift that I see oftentimes with people who have big breakthroughs.

are like trying to control everything to learning to empower others the right way and delegating the right way. And what I mean by the right way is the way that your team needs to learn. So everyone’s different. So learning about different people, who’s working for you, what kind of type of personalities do you work with? do you have people that are more visual? Some people are more tactile. So how can you teach them?

How can you put something that makes them feel empowered? Because as much experience as they can say they have on their resume, when you show up at a new company, you need to be onboarded in a way that the person understands your business and where you’re going. So do people understand your vision and your mission as a company? And the fifth one, I would say the big mindset shift is really going from fear of change to curiosity and innovation. So right now the big…

Rob – Intrigue Media (10:07)
Mm.

Frank Bourque (10:21)
fear is, hey, how is the economy gonna do next year? What are people buying if they’re not investing in as big projects as we saw a couple years ago? We’re seeing some trends where people are still investing in their property, they’re still hiring people to do the work, but they might not do everything that they would have done a few years ago when they were stuck at home, right? And so as a business owner, you can fear that and just be like hoping for the best.

Rob – Intrigue Media (10:41)
Mm-hmm.

Frank Bourque (10:45)
Or you can say, no, we’re gonna do a slight shift and we’re gonna package things differently. So people understand that they have options. And if they need something that’s less expensive or payment plan or whatever else, we’re gonna adjust, we’re gonna innovate, we’re gonna use technology that makes it easier for people to do business with us. So all these things I find is what is keeping people small, keeping people feeling stuck.

Rob – Intrigue Media (11:03)
Thank

Frank Bourque (11:11)
and keeping people from great breakthroughs, like breaking through feeling like you don’t know what’s on the other side. I’m gonna be very uncomfortable if I do this because I’ve never done it, right? And that’s a scary place to be because you don’t always feel in control, but the more you do it, the more you realize that if you do the right things and you teach the right things to the right people around you,

They want to get on board a mission and a vision. And if they have a plan for their, they see it as a career. It’s investment of their time because they see what it gives back. They become contributors and not just workers. so mindset for me is everything. Now that I take a look at everyone that’s had a lot of success with coaching, consulting, or just growing their business, they’re people who made mindset their priority.

Rob – Intrigue Media (11:45)
Hmm

Frank Bourque (12:01)
And we’re coming close to a new year. And you know, when I think about all the events that go in the winter time and people go in for different reasons, if you go in with, what can I change that might make me uncomfortable, but that I know if I do it, it’s going to make a big impact on my personal life or my business or people around me. And if you go with that kind of mindset in any

educational event or even with this podcast, listening, whoever’s listening to this podcast, just if we ask ourselves, hey, what can I do in the next quarter so that my mindset becomes more positive, more willing to learn, more open to being uncomfortable?

Rob – Intrigue Media (12:44)
Well, and I think that’s the kicker in all of these things. mean, I’ve got you, I mean, you just laid out five mindsets that are common. So first of all, I think it’s just illustrating the value of a really solid coach or consultant that like you who’s seen all this pattern, like you have pattern recognition, right? You, you, you talk to all these entrepreneurs, you see it, you can then distill it. You can share it. Like, I just think that’s super cool. And a lot of people maybe don’t get it at how valuable it can be working with a coach like you.

Frank Bourque (13:05)
Mm-hmm.

Rob – Intrigue Media (13:11)
until they start to hear things like this, because you’re observing hundreds of entrepreneurs and distilling down and simplifying to help one. And I just think that’s super cool. And what was really neat in each mindset of like in versus on, scarcity versus abundance, perfection versus progress, control to empower, fear of change, the curiosity of innovation. All of this idea is a decision to say, I want to think differently, even if that scares me a little bit.

And I think that’s the kicker in all of this because growth doesn’t happen inside a comfort zone. just doesn’t. And so like when something’s curious, I’m kind of like, this is it. This is, this is one of the good things. Like this is, I don’t like it, but let’s go, you know? Anyway, I just think that’s really neat how it all lines up like that. And I got another piece on calendars, but I want to let you share your thoughts on that summary.

Frank Bourque (13:47)
Hmm.

So around the wet one.

Rob – Intrigue Media (14:04)
Well, just the idea of like making this decision to be uncomfortable. It seems like a common theme throughout all mindsets when we shift from one level to the next.

Frank Bourque (14:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, you’re right. And it’s when you’re shifting from one mindset to the next or one activity or one habit to the next, it’s like not knowing what’s on the other side. So am I going to be am I going to get hungry if there’s less money coming in? Am I going to lose employees if I if I don’t succeed? So if I stick with what’s comfortable, maybe it’s better than just taking chances. And I’m a big believer in in a plan.

And so when I get fearful or anxious about making decisions, whether it’s about the business, my family, it’s my personal life, I write them down and I call that my journaling. It’s like every day, you know, I start putting down on paper stuff that scares me. And for some reason, by just putting it down on paper, your brain is starting.

to get used to the idea of brainstorming solutions about that problem. And what I’m amazed by is every time I go to bed and I’ve done a little bit of journaling, because I don’t have all the answers when I go to bed, but sometimes I just write down the stuff that I need to figure out solutions about. When I wake up the next morning, it often happens where I wake up with solutions. I’m at my peak state.

My mind is fresh, my body feels good. I’m in the gym and all of a sudden, it’s like I get some options or ideas about clarity. It’s like, oh, why did I not think of that? I could just ask that question to that person. Instead of trying to beat my head on the wall, I could just ask that person, what would you like? Like for example, I had that example because that happened to me yesterday. I had a…

Rob – Intrigue Media (15:41)
Clarity,

Frank Bourque (15:59)
I was dealing with a case that very difficult and the person feels really, really stuck. And my tendency as a coach is to provide some examples and just like, so I went to bed just journaling, like, listen, I don’t really know what to tell that person because that person is in a tough situation business-wise. But I was thinking, what could I tell that person to get her thinking differently? And the first thing, my, I mean,

I’m tempted to tell her what I would do. But instead of doing that, the next morning when I woke up, it’s like I was in the gym. And the first thing that came on to me is like, just as that person, first of all, what is it bringing her to keep doing what she’s doing? Like, what, is that bringing you? Cause maybe it’s bringing you something that I don’t know. That’s why you’re doing it. That’s why I don’t, right? So I don’t understand why you’re doing it. But if you explain it to me,

Rob – Intrigue Media (16:30)
Right.

Okay, yeah, yeah. Good question, right?

Frank Bourque (16:52)
So I asked that person and it started that way, just with that one question. What is it bringing you to do what you do? And the person was struggling like, I don’t know, it’s keeping me from doing anything wrong. It’s keeping me from things getting worse. I’m like, yeah, but what is it actually helping? Like how is it helping the situation? And that person couldn’t come with an answer. And I said, well, if you were looking at somebody else on the other side, what would you tell that person? Right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (17:19)
That’s beautiful.

Frank Bourque (17:21)
But being in my peak state, I was asking better question. I had more patience. Everything is kind of at the optimal level, but the person was starting to get it. Listen, you can’t find solutions if you’re focused on what you fear. You can’t find solutions if you are stuck in the pattern where you’re telling yourself, I’ve never been able to solve those issues, so I won’t be able to do it. And so we spent a whole hour just on brainstorming. And by the end of that hour,

Rob – Intrigue Media (17:24)
Yeah.

Frank Bourque (17:51)
the person had multiple different options. Some was gonna, it was gonna take that person out of that comfort zone for sure because she, now she has to actually do these things. And it’s kind of scary to that person like, hey, I gotta do team meetings now. I’ve never done team meetings. I have to do that. I have to start thinking about training people. I never done that, so, but I have to learn. And so that person realized that

Okay, now you know what you have to do and now I can coach you on these things if that’s what you’re looking for. You made a decision. Exactly. And so it starts with realizing change is constant and whether we want it or not, that’s just life. We’re habitual creatures, it’s human beings, we’re used to getting things done our way and then some people are more flexible than others. But there’s also…

Rob – Intrigue Media (18:24)
Because you’ve made a decision in your own mind that you want to go do this stuff.

Frank Bourque (18:46)
the whole point of being here in my mind is like, we have to evolve. The more we evolve, the more we learn, the more we’re open, the more it creates opportunities. And I think that’s one of the best skills to build and to show your team is we’re gonna adapt. We’re not gonna react, we’re gonna adapt. We’re gonna put things in place where people know a little bit more what to expect, because…

I mean, it’s a changing environment. So if I can create systems in my business that are more predictable, people will fear change less, people will adapt better, and people will feel like we have a plan when something goes wrong for next time, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (19:26)
Yeah, that’s

cool. And I mean, you start to get into like cliches around, got to slow down to speed up. I think it’s cliche to say again, like a lot of cliches are not cliche to do. And going back to that idea of like 10 hours a week or even like one day a month, you know, to, just calendar and prioritize working on the business. I do have two questions though around that. And the first one is around, let’s say I’m

Frank Bourque (19:29)
Okay.

Rob – Intrigue Media (19:51)
in a perfection to progress mindset shift. And I’m not working on the business enough common issue we see with entrepreneurs in every industry. And I’m going to start putting, let’s call it a full day, once a month into my calendar to work on the business. And then in, in two weeks, I see it coming up in my calendar. I’m like, there’s that day. But I don’t know what I’m going to do. And a client wants to meet. So now because that meeting’s just with me, I’m going to overwrite it with a client because they’re going to bring in money.

I don’t even know what I’m going to do on that day. So how is it important? How do you help people figure out what to focus on when they do give themselves the space to work on the business?

Frank Bourque (20:29)
Yeah. I’m always looking at the goal. What’s the goal for that meeting? What would you like to happen out of that meeting? And like you say, sometimes it’s like the meeting’s on the calendar. You don’t know what you’re gonna be talking about, like, if you, it starts with an intention in my mind. It always starts with an intention. And I think to be in your peak state during the day is you have to know where you’re going.

You have to know where you’re going with your team. You have to know what you’re going with your plan. If you don’t have a plan to meet, you need to create that plan. That plan gives focus. And what I’ve realized is the most high performing teams and business owners are the ones who have created a space where people can focus. What I mean by focus is if you have a plan, you feel you have something you can rely on for your next steps.

if you have team meetings that brings back all the anxiety or all the problems back to solutions and what you can be doing about it. The focus in that example is we’re gonna find solutions to the problem. We’re not gonna just complain or brainstorm for hours. We’re gonna be really intentional about what we’re trying to get done. So first, I help my clients get more intentional.

And for some people, they’ve never done that. They’ve never learned to like, to wake up and first and foremost think about like, what are the three things you need to get done today? And why do need them to get done? And sometimes when they don’t know the answer to it, I don’t know. My goal is to organize the team. Okay, well, why do you need to do that every day? Because if I don’t organize them, they won’t do it alone. Okay, is there anything you can do so that they can start doing it without you? No, no, it’s impossible. ⁓

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:13)
Of course.

Frank Bourque (22:14)
That’s where I come in and I challenge them until they realize, listen, if your intention is for them to do it on their own one day, then you have to start speaking that way. Like you have to start telling your team, like you have confidence in them and you realize that it doesn’t always come easy, but you’re there to support them and you have to say things like that for them to.

Rob – Intrigue Media (22:37)
Yeah. And also another thing on that one, I’m curious to your take on this. Like a lot of people think they have to do something because they think about it a certain way. And they’re just like, I can’t really train this. I just think about it. I just like, if you give me the solution or give me the situation, I’ll deal with it, how to deal with it. And we’ll come up with how to figure it out. And I think a lot of people forget that like there’s a bunch of criteria or variables that they’re sorting through in their brain really quickly. And they just haven’t discerned like discerned how to get it out of their brain into, into paper.

You run across that, like how does that work in terms of getting somebody that’s like, it’s all here. I can’t really do much about it. No one else can do it to getting that out into a training type of environment where we can start to process this stuff.

Frank Bourque (23:15)
So in terms of information, it’s getting easier and easier with different tools to start processing what you’re thinking and what you’re trying to do with it. So for an example, and I’ll do this all the time just to show people, just to challenge them. And that’s just recent in the last year. But when people start complaining about something, I’m like, okay, let’s find solutions. Maybe we’ll find solutions, but maybe we have to…

to look at it a different way. So I’ll go at something like chat GBT and just say, hey, let’s just ask chat GBT what people are doing to fix problems like these. Let’s just start there, all right? It’s very factual, very factual. So it pumps out information. And then I start looking at examples and I ask them, okay, well, could you see yourself doing this? Not really. Okay, one to 10. And if I can hit a number like a seven or an eight out of 10, I know there’s hope. There’s hope, exactly.

Rob – Intrigue Media (23:51)
Yeah, sure.

You know, you got some.

Frank Bourque (24:09)
So I start with the hope, right? And I start just talking about the things that they can picture a little bit. And so if I can find a way for them to say, okay, well, I think this way, how do I put that into action? Okay, well, let’s take one habit you can do that’s not gonna be too much on your schedule, but by doing this, you’re still changing something. You’re still putting something in action and it’s a new habit that you’re not used to.

It’s funny because I asked a client of mine the other day, like, and this is like intentional friction to strengthen your mind. the person was telling me, I love coffee, but I feel sometimes I have too much coffee. Just talking about coffee, could see they were really wired. And I’m like, have you ever tried to just flip a coin and say, that morning, if it’s heads or tails, if it’s heads, you take your coffee. If it’s tails, well, then you don’t. And said, no, I would never.

Rob – Intrigue Media (24:52)
you

Frank Bourque (25:04)
I would never do this, but I’m like, that’s kind of what I’m hearing from you from everything else. Like you will never change those habits unless you’re forced to do it, but you wouldn’t do it on your own because that requires you to flip the coin. I call it flip day. For people that are very, very like set in their ways, ⁓ it’s like.

Rob – Intrigue Media (25:14)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah. I love that.

That’s what you cool little like life hack.

Frank Bourque (25:28)
All right, just like do something different. Let go for once, just to see what happens. And so the coffee thing is just an example. But if that person would take a coffee, I mean, they could complain about it, focus on it all day. But chances are, if they’re really busy, they will probably forget about it by noon. And they might have a headache because you drink too much coffee anyways. But at the end of the day, it’s, you might realize, not the end of the world. You were uncomfortable even thinking about it because it’s just kind of a habit, but.

Rob – Intrigue Media (25:29)
Let go, just let go.

easy.

Frank Bourque (25:55)
It’s like that for every decision in a day and how many decisions do we have in one day, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (25:59)
Yeah, hundreds if not thousands, right? So one of the things you kind of said at the beginning and I’ve kind of related to throughout all the different kind of components was this idea of like in the calendar and routine and habits and like, know, we’re creatures of habit and our success kind of rises and falls on routines. Which I’m a huge believer that like, if you want to look at someone’s priorities, it’s really easy if you just look at a calendar.

Um, and then I find that’s really interesting too, is that a lot of business owners, their calendar is jammed from like seven 30 to five 30, and then there’s just nothing in the calendar before and after. That’s why just like their life stops. Kind of weird. Um, can you speak to us about like how calendars can really be helpful and like, you know, why such a simple tool can actually be such a, a, like a, like growth unlock.

Frank Bourque (26:50)
Yeah, yeah. My friend Sam said we were doing a presentation together and he flipped on a slide and it said something like to the effect of show me your calendar and I’ll show you where you’re going this week type of thing. Like if it’s gonna be a good week or not. And absolutely, and I think if I take that to like, if we look at it in different ways, just not for business, but when we look at our calendars and

That hit me this year for maybe more than usual, just because I’m at the age now I’m looking like, okay, wherever I spend my time, it really needs to be somewhere I think it’s, you know, it makes me happy doing it, or it has a bigger purpose, bigger than me, and I’ll do whatever I have to do to achieve that goal. If not, it just kind of feels like a waste of time. when I look at the calendar now, I’m thinking, okay, where’s my exercise?

Like, hey, tomorrow it’s pretty big day, like where am I gonna fit my exercise? Right, because I know if I don’t do my exercise, I’m just not in my peak state. just, really, my body craves exercise and then when I don’t do it, I just don’t feel the same mentally. I just don’t. I get more emotional, I have less patience and I just don’t feel that good that day. Then I take a look at like, when do I have time to think? Like, do I have blocks where I can just focus on the hard work I have to do and I know.

Rob – Intrigue Media (27:54)
Hmm.

Frank Bourque (28:09)
I’m just wiring away where I work better in the morning. I can wake up early and I do my best thinking and work from like 5 a.m. to like 10 a.m. That’s where like the best ideas come and everything seems easier and I don’t feel like problems really stop me at that time of the day. I’m flowing, yep. So I always try to…

Rob – Intrigue Media (28:26)
You’re flowing. Yeah.

Frank Bourque (28:31)
to look at like, are my goals for today? What are the three things I have to do no matter what? Like I wanna push some projects that are more long-term forward. I wanna work on stuff that’s more short-term. I wanna reach out to people that can get me closer to my goals. So I’m gonna blog that first, because I know the bigger goal is to really take everything to that next level, that goal I have. So am I doing that? And when I don’t do that, for some reason, I feel really disorganized in my day.

I don’t know if you’ve probably witnessed that a lot, but I’ve never met a team that was really organized. The more disorganized they are, the more I realized the less happy they are with the company they work at. When I show up somewhere and I see lack of organization, lack of focus, lack of goals, it’s incredible, but like,

Rob – Intrigue Media (29:13)
That’s an interesting take.

Frank Bourque (29:25)
the level of happiness is directly proportional to how focused, organized that that team is able to be. And the more they are able to organize, find solutions, feel supported, it’s like their performance is very much related to that. And sometimes people just don’t fit in in that environment, but that’s how I know they will never be high performing. Because if you can’t perform,

in a really good environment, it just means you have a lot of work to do. And, you know, that’s how you can outgrow people as a company too, right?

Rob – Intrigue Media (30:00)
Yeah,

we’ve seen that time and time again. I think it’s really interesting though. And a mistake I made, you know, early on was like giving too much autonomy too early and not providing clarity in terms of what does the scoreboard look like for us as an organization? What game are we actually playing so that we can all kind of win together? And then we end up with people that are all trying to win different games and they all have good intentions. They’re all trying their best, but they’re just like, don’t know which way to go. It’s like trying to, you know, win a

Frank Bourque (30:10)
Yeah.

I like that.

Rob – Intrigue Media (30:29)
football game with no score. You just can’t. And, and, and as we become more and more organized to your point of like, here are the priorities. This is what we’re working on today, this week, this month. Everybody’s like flying. They know what, if they’re on pace to get it done. And if they can like hang out with the water cooler and you know, whatever, throw a ball around or sit in the massage chair. Cause they know if they’re winning or not, if they’re behind. So when you see people, last piece then, um, just, just to come off of that.

Frank Bourque (30:31)
love it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (30:59)
point when you see people move from like, say they are in a bit of a chaotic, quasi organized environment, you know, they’re, they’re, they’ve done pretty well. They’re, they’ve got a good team. They’ve got good customers. grow in a good business and they want to like really tighten it up. What do you see as like a common thing or symptom that people are probably experiencing that one or two things they could start to focus on might, might address it.

Frank Bourque (31:13)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, like for me, a sign that there’s a change needed is when a person is always feeling anxious or like feeling anxiety around that topic. So when I see that or sense that, that’s when I start asking questions, but I try to.

jump into solution mode as quick as possible. That’s me being in front of the person on the other side. And sometimes I realize we won’t be able to even implement a system until I get through to the person emotionally. And sometimes it’s like you have to hit that nerve for them to get it. So I always say like systems reduce the emotional stress.

Rob – Intrigue Media (31:57)
Mm-hmm.

Frank Bourque (32:07)
decision fatigue because you have something in place where it kind of follows, it’s a process, it follows different steps. But when you free your mental bandwidth, that helps you for being creative and to be able to lead people. But if you’re really stressed out, it’s hard to even lead people or to be creative because you’re just stuck in firefighter mode.

Rob – Intrigue Media (32:32)
Yeah.

Frank Bourque (32:34)
So we just start with realizing when people are ready, I feel that shift. It’s like, I feel this way and I wanna do everything in my power to shift that. And so that’s when we go into solution mode. And okay, well, if you want that result, these are the things, the non-negotiables that you’re gonna have to do. How do you feel about these things? And we talk about the things that they fear, that they don’t know.

And it’s like, sometimes they just realize like, yeah, it’s gonna be uncomfortable, but nothing’s bad, it’s gonna happen. So we get to challenge that. But also when they realize like, I just don’t have the skill yet, right? Okay, well then you know what you need to learn. You know what kind of knowledge that you need to bring in to help you. But in order to like, if I was to just tell a business owner, hey, listen, when there’s a moment,

when you see a team member and you see like an opportunity for them because they have like a mindset shift, like they’re like, hey, I realized that I want to build a career here, not just a job. Are there more opportunities for me here? It’s like you, as a business, as a leader, you have to jump on that opportunity because that says, the person just told you, I’m willing to think I’m in it and I’m willing to do more than I’m, you know, I’m willing to go outside of the box that I’m used to.

Rob – Intrigue Media (33:52)
I’m in it.

Frank Bourque (34:00)
to get there. Can you show me how to get there? Is there a way that we can work on this to get there? And that’s kind of the approach that I try to have with my clients is the same approach that I would tell them with their own team is when you see an opportunity, jump on it. Because I’m sure you’ve went through life and at times you just knew or felt you wanted to change, you wanted something new and you’re ready for it. And when you have someone in front of you, it could be your wife, it could be your team, it could be anybody else. But if someone,

jumps on the opportunity to say, I’m gonna be here to help you. Whether it’s accountability as an accountability partner, as a mentor, or whatever else, you jump on that opportunity. so, and I know I’ve seen just you inside your business do that numerous times. Just the little stuff that brings people to that mindset shift. You gave me a shirt last year at HNA and

there was your logo in the front, but the biggest part of the t-shirt was in the back and the message was like, it was talking more about the mission, the deeper mission. It was to serve like the community in empowering, right? And so to me, it’s like those little things are so subtle and even on a subconscious level, but you started doing that with your team when you see an opportunity and then people get used to it.

Rob – Intrigue Media (35:04)
Yeah, empowering leaders to strengthen communities. You got it. Yeah.

Frank Bourque (35:19)
And then all of a sudden, you don’t even know how they went from like, not even thinking that way to now just really owning that mission to wanting to like create better leaders around them. And then they realize they’re a better leader. It’s creating momentum sometimes just with the opportunities that present themselves and not missing the opportunities to do so. Because I think there’s, when there’s an opening to jump on it, right? No.

Rob – Intrigue Media (35:39)
Yeah, that’s cool.

Well, and they don’t come all the time, right? And I think

one of the things that you said there though, it’s like, if I’ve got issues, I’m usually going to have some sort of like negative emotional response to the topic. And then we’re going to use our feelings essentially to address the issues that we know we have, but maybe have like put off to the side and ignored because it’s easier to ignore than to address. But in the end, it might not be the case at all.

And so think it’s super simple though. If you talk to somebody about like lead gen sales, onboarding, training, maintenance, ongoing relationships, admin, HR, and you just say on a score of one to four, how happy are you with each of these pieces? And then anywhere there’s a one or two, it’s like, all right, well, should we talk? Yeah, I think that’s just beautifully simple, man. And like everybody’s gonna, if they’re honest with themselves, which can be difficult for some, but if they are, then they’re gonna see pretty quickly where they need to put some time and effort.

Frank Bourque (36:27)
Should we talk about it? Yeah.

Yeah. One example would be for anyone listening to this, if it resonates, it would be to ask yourself, because I’ve noticed what people procrastinate on the most is usually sometimes, at least sometimes, the most important thing you should be doing that you know you should be doing. But if you did it, your life would change. So for me, it’s like the aha moment that I got this year at an event. I was listening to someone who

Rob – Intrigue Media (36:55)
Mm.

Frank Bourque (37:07)
you know, is probably gonna be a billionaire very soon. But when I looked at his schedule, I was like, this person has more meetings that I have, this person has more, he deals with more people, more money, more problems, but he has a system for everything. And what he does the best is he blocks his schedule. It’s like almost, almost non-negotiable for certain things.

And he just really tries to maximize his day. And I’ll give you an example. I’m saying like time blocking, but time stacking. And I had never really like gotten to term as well as when he explained it, he’s like, hey, I can go to the gym with my son. And for what it brings me is I get time with my son. And plus I exercise.

And then plus we get to even sometimes address stuff that we’ve meant to talk about for a long time. So I get to hang out, I get to solve problems for my son or help him out. And then plus I get to work out. So I’ve done three things that I still had to do that day, but now we’ve done it in one hour. So I’m like, wow. So if you take similar tasks that you can blend together, or like every business owner needs to eat lunch every day. Well, how about once a week creating

Rob – Intrigue Media (38:08)
Yeah.

Frank Bourque (38:24)
booking a meeting with someone, going for lunch with a potential partner or someone who maybe it’s another business team member. It could be anything at all. And just like, hey, we’re eating lunch, we’re catching up. And sometimes we don’t even have to talk about business, but it’s just doing things together, which really maximizes your time and your results and your time stacking. Yeah. Right.

Rob – Intrigue Media (38:31)
team member.

Time stacking. ⁓ Love that one dude, that’s really cool. ⁓

And now I’m just like trying to look at my calendar literally as I’m talking to you like, we’re gonna stack this stuff. And I just think that’s a huge, anyway, as always, thank you. I appreciate you and what you do for the industry and for entrepreneurs and leaders all around North America. Quick resource that you would share.

Frank Bourque (38:56)
You all right?

Yeah.

I’ll share. We gave this book to over 125 people at our last event, but it was a book on, it’s called, maybe it’s upside down, but Chess, yeah, Chess Not Checkers by Mark Miller. And really what this book is about is you can’t play the game, like there’s certain times you’re playing the wrong game. Like, so if you’re playing, if you’re working, let’s say in the business versus on the business.

Rob – Intrigue Media (39:17)
You’re good chestnut checkers.

Frank Bourque (39:36)
and you’re always on the field. But you know that you wanna take your business above a certain level of revenue. And so you’re gonna have more, it’s gonna get tougher and tougher if you don’t start playing chess, which is working on the business. It’s building the systems. The systems is the leverage that you need. And so, but it talks about leadership. It talks about just how to…

elevate your leadership game in multiple ways.

Rob – Intrigue Media (40:03)
So gives you like

some practical guidelines to actually follow because a lot of leadership stuff can be pretty ambiguous and tough to like make tangible.

Frank Bourque (40:09)
Yeah,

yeah, and this one I really like it just easy to read. It’s a fast read, but it really gives like all the essential stuff that you would want as a business owner as a reminder. Like you do these things, you’ll feel like you’re going in the right direction.

Rob – Intrigue Media (40:23)
Yeah, that’s cool,

And it was chestnut checkers by Mark Miller. Awesome. And Frankbork.com, Frank underscore Bork on Instagram. Where are you next?

Frank Bourque (40:28)
Mark Miller, yeah, a great resource.

Next week I’m in Michigan for LAL, a great event by the Lawn Entrepreneur Academy, Brian Fullerton and ⁓ great people. So anyone wanting a great event, man, there’s great speakers there. And I won’t be speaking there, but I’m there just because I love it that much.

Rob – Intrigue Media (40:56)
Awesome, man. Well, we appreciate you like always. And thanks everybody for listening to another episode of the IM Landscape Growth Podcast.