Scot Eckley (SEI) on Specialization, Extreme Ownership & Using ChatGPT to Scale

Rob (00:01.966)
Hi everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the IM Landscape growth podcast. Uh, an awesome client, amazing landscaper, you know, visionary from the industry, from my point of view, uh, we got Scot Eckley on, on the, on the show today. Thank you so much for doing this. Got really appreciate it, man.

Scot (00:22.018)
You’re welcome.

Rob (00:24.146)
And so Scot Eckley, you run SEI. so maybe you can give folks a little bit of a quick summary, Cole’s notes of where you came from to get to this thing, where you are, what’s the core focus of the business today so we can have some context in terms of your perspective as we go through this.

Scot (00:41.292)
Yeah, sure. I have a design build company in Seattle and we really focus on helping clients in the immediate Seattle area uncover and discover the potential of their small outdoor spaces to kind of expand their outdoor living. And so I have a degree in landscape architecture. I got to

Landscaping, maybe like a lot of guys and gals did, it started off being a summer job. And slowly over about five years, it led to going back to school and studying landscape architecture and then starting my own business. And today, you know, we’re a team of about 22 landscape designers and architects, project managers and builders.

Rob (01:24.322)
Amazing.

Rob (01:33.759)
So, you know this now because we’ve spoken about it, but I use Scot Eckley’s website as like the core example of what it can look like if a landscape company decides to establish a position and essentially take a lane when it comes to how they market themselves and what they work on. And so if you get a chance, if you want to check it out,

It’s ScotEckleyInc.com. believe my screen on the one side is a bit… Yeah, Scot. No, ScotEckley.com. Scot with one T E C L E Y. E C. So for the record, it’s ScotEckley. Scot with one T E C K L E Y.com. ScotEckley.com. If you Google Scott Eckley Landscape Seattle, you’ll find it. Doesn’t matter how you spell it, you’ll find it.

Scot (02:05.23)
It’s Scot Eccl-

Scot (02:11.391)
E-C-K-L-E-Y.

Rob (02:28.556)
But one of the things that’s just amazing is I just love how you’ve specialized in outdoor urban and downtown Seattle. So it’s not only geographically really tight, it’s also a very specific approach to your work. I literally speak to thousands of landscapers every year. And I use you as an example because it’s just such a beautiful position. just think you’ve just done such a great job with it. OK. Thank you for doing this.

This is the question we’ve got a bunch to talk about. Scot’s got some really cool perspectives he needs to share. And I really want everybody to listen to this thing. But before we get into it, because I think it actually lines up really well with this question, but I mean, it’s the entire show. So what is the primary growth constraint holding entrepreneurs back in the green industry, Scot?

Scot (03:00.919)
Thank

Scot (03:16.491)
Yeah. So, you know, I’ve listened probably to almost every one of your podcasts. So I know how to answer this. I know the politically correct answer. It’s, me, right? So, I’ve been thinking a little bit more about that deeper constraint. and for me, I can’t speak to everybody for, but for me, it’s moving from.

Rob (03:23.209)
Hahaha

Scot (03:39.916)
you know, up until a few years ago, kind of me insisting on being the solution to making that transition to building the people and the systems that like create the solutions for the company. So it’s, that, for me, it’s that mind shift.

Rob (03:57.167)
You are right, that is the right answer. One of the things that’s fascinating is that everybody’s answer is always different. So when you talk about you being the solution versus building up the people and the systems to be the solution, what did you do to start down that path or what was it that gave you the aha moment?

Scot (04:21.429)
It’s been slow and it’s been like painful. Yeah, yeah, you know, it started about 10 years ago and there are many, many years we are eyes running the company and we’re just robbing Peter to pay Paul, you know, really not making a profit. And,

Rob (04:24.814)
Such is business and entrepreneurship sometimes.

Scot (04:47.597)
My wife was in the hospital. were having our second child. She was in the hospital for a month before he was born. And I had to go ask my mom to borrow some money to like make some ends meet. And that was awful in so many ways. I had to tell my wife and she was in a challenging point. And I’m like, I don’t want this to happen again. And

I was reading through like one of the big about a big industry convention and I read about this

one of the speakers who is talking about open book management. And, you know, I’m somebody that hops around to like lots of different ideas. I’ll chase any unicorn over like any rainbow. And I’m like, I want to talk to this guy. This is our salvation of following open book management, getting people engaged. So I reached out to him. He met with me.

And he’s like, hey, Scot, I’d love to work with you, but you’re you’re nowhere ready for this. You got to like kind of shore up the foundation. So I’ve been working with him kind of for many years. And I think I really made that transition very slowly from. Well, I’ve just learned how to become a business owner and how that’s very different than.

Originally, I just wanted to do beautiful work, beautiful designs. didn’t matter if we lost money. It’s like the product was pretty. And now we’re like rooted. like, it’s a beautiful hobby, but it’s a painful hobby. And I’ve just made that transition. It’s like, listen, my first thing is like, we’re running a business. Like that really needs to be the lens that we kind of make all our decisions from. It’s like, we’ve got to live for another day and we’ve got to have profit.

Rob (06:15.082)
Mm-hmm. It’s a beautiful hobby.

Scot (06:37.613)
So it’s been really slow. It’s been working with some great consultants and a lot of people outside of me, like you, different people that can lead different parts of the company or the different things that we do.

Rob (06:55.694)
So, I mean, first of all, thank you for sharing. And I mean, I can see how that catalyst was like painful to create change, right? Like, you know, it’s usually pain that creates the difference in our behavior more than anything. So then you start to make this transition to business owner from creator, essentially. mean, they’re the same, but the business owner is a creator through the lens of the business ownership. What were, like, what are, what are, or what were some of the biggest

Scot (06:58.049)
Yeah.

Scot (07:05.516)
Yeah.

Scot (07:20.097)
Mm-hmm.

Rob (07:25.25)
differences in terms of how you showed up. Like what did your day, or month look like differently now that you were stepping into that ownership space?

Scot (07:29.726)
Get out.

Scot (07:36.056)
You know, honestly, the transition’s been really slow until maybe the last year and a half. so the consultant we work with is this awesome guy named Dan Foley. He’s in Massachusetts.

And I remember I used to tell Dan, it’s like, damn, I’m just an 80 % or I’m pretty good at getting like 80 % done. But then the last 20%, I like lose interest and it kind of doesn’t get done. just lays there on the cutting room floor. And so really the big change for me happened a couple years ago. my son was diagnosed with ADHD.

And then after that, my wife and I kind of did a deep dive into ADHD and we hired a parent coach and we met with her a couple times a week for six months, then once a week after that. And the first thing she did is just, it was all online. She runs us through her slide deck teaching us about what ADHD is. I’m like, my gosh, that’s me, that’s me, that’s me, that’s me. And I’m like,

I think that’s me. And so I got tested and discovered ADHD. And I’m dyslexic. I’ve always known that. I can’t send an email out without having somebody proofread it or you’re going to get it. And there’s going to be a couple of words that are off and you’re like, what’s going on? So I think I’ve always thought that like, the dyslexia is the thing that

You know, I’m just always trying to overcome but then learning about ADHD and so that was honestly my big aha moment and learning about the different types of ADHD and like how it shows up in my life. was the moment where I literally cried and it just for the relief of like, my gosh, all these things I’ve struggled with.

Rob (09:33.368)
Hmm?

Scot (09:44.085)
like it all now makes sense doesn’t make it any easier but now I just have a better lens that I can look at myself and understand myself with.

Rob (09:50.467)
Well, and I think.

which is amazing. So then you can probably give you an opportunity to give yourself grace, but then also with new awareness, understand how to surround yourself with the right folks to start doing this thing.

Scot (09:58.51)
.

Scot (10:06.315)
Yeah, totally.

Rob (10:08.162)
So then what happened?

Scot (10:10.347)
Well, you know, a big thing for me is about that same time. so I’ve, I’ve never done social media, I haven’t done Tik TOK, Facebook, you know, somebody with ADHD, you can like hyper focus and I’ve always stayed away from those. Cause I have enough of like a hyper folk because addictive personality is it is that I just saw those as rabbit holes, but about that, are about to be. Yeah.

Rob (10:35.966)
and they are engineered engineered rabbit holes.

Scot (10:40.301)
Well, I still kind of found it because a couple years ago, it’s the first time I dabbled with a chat GPT. And that became honestly like a really powerful tool for me. And over the last couple years, I’ve used it a lot. And it has honestly, I feel like I use it both.

like strategically or very tactically to help me like work in the business. But I’ve also been using it more strategically to help kind of work on the business. And for me, it’s like all these things finally kind of dovetailed together and it’s been using AI that I think has really like freed me up and has allowed me to

have a system and have a tool that can kind of keep up with that like ADHD brain. So I’d be happy to talk about that because it’s been pretty incredible.

Rob (11:46.979)
Well, so we had a session yesterday on how to leverage AI for landscape entrepreneurs. And so we just shared a bunch of different use cases and examples of folks and how they’re using it from things like having a sales call transcribed and then put into ChatGPT to build.

Scot (11:53.165)
Thank

Rob (12:11.308)
you checklists on sales process. So you essentially have the owner do 20 sales calls, and then you build a summary from all the transcripts and the checklist. And then the next person that does sales calls and gets trained has their transcripts graded against the checklist. As an example, SOPs through interviews on Zoom, response. was a million use cases in terms of how it could be leveraged, but there were a lot of people on the call. There was like 40 people there.

Scot (12:14.825)
Thanks.

Scot (12:20.182)
Yeah.

Scot (12:33.911)
Thank

Rob (12:38.658)
We’re just like, I don’t know, this AI thing is something I don’t want to learn. It seems scary. It’s Terminator 2. You know, I’m using ChatGBT, but I don’t think I’m using it right. So yeah, I mean, if you can share a couple of examples, that’d be super helpful.

Scot (12:45.761)
Yeah.

Scot (12:52.779)
Yeah, you know, I’d like to just first talk about like there are three types of ADHD and I’m not an expert on any of them. But I just wanted to really quickly go over them because I think sometimes like people like, ADHD and you know, it’s called a different term.

Rob (12:59.473)
Mmm.

Rob (13:06.775)
Yeah, shoot.

Scot (13:12.941)
But yeah, I’m not an expert, but there are really three types of ADHD. There’s one type that’s called inattentive. And that’s where you might have trouble starting tasks. And I do want to talk about that. You can have difficulty sustaining focus on like low stimulation work. There’s like time blindness. You just get sucked in and you know, hours can go away.

Scot (13:36.886)
And then things can fall off the radar when they lack urgency or novelty and a big part of ADHD is tied to, you know, dopamine. And then there’s that hyperactive impulsive type. You know, there’s that physical restlessness, impulsive with decisions or speech. I have a little bit of that still. It’s hard to slow down and it’s often really obvious in kids. And then there’s the combined type. There’s a mix of inattentive and hyperactive.

that’s common in childhood and it can evolve over time. many, the type shift often is people age. And I wanna just talk for a moment, because when you and I met a few months ago to talk about this call, I’m like, it’s people with ADHD really procrastinate. And you’re like, Scot, that’s everybody. And it kind of stuck with me. I’m like, I’m gonna get to that a little bit more. And it’s not so much they procrastinate.

know what I need to do. I don’t have any problems doing it. But with ADHD, it’s like the ignition isn’t there. You know, you’ve got the engine to do the work, but the actual ignition to like, get to turn it on to do it. Like, I’ll go to the office, I go to the office most Sunday nights, and I’ll block out three hours to do work. And I know what I have to do. And I’m there to do it. But I’ll just I’ll do other stuff for the first two and a half hours. And then it’s not until there’s like, that real intention that

of like intensity to get it done, urgency to do it. So I don’t know if that kind of helps.

Rob (15:08.11)
Emergency.

Rob (15:14.606)
I think it does help a lot. cause I’m, I have very similar tendencies, you know, there’s no diagnosis to say otherwise, whatever, but I have very similar tendencies. And when you’re talking about that, I think it’s really interesting because what, what I’ve done in the past, when I have work that I need to do, it’s on the business. Like showing up for a call for me is like easy peasy. I’ve been training for almost 20 years. I do it all the time. If I had

10 meetings in a day with prospects, podcasts and team members. Boom, boom, boom. No issue, no anxiety, calm, cool transition. All good for the most part. mean, every once in a while, you know, maybe you’re frustrated, whatever. but when it’s like a two, three hour task I got to do on my own, I’ll invite somebody to a zoom call and just have them sit there and do their work while I do mine.

Scot (16:02.775)
yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s a buddy system. Like literally, I needed to pick up a medication. And you know, I’ve been seeing a therapist since I got diagnosed and that the person that diagnosed me suggested this. And I was telling Holly last week, it’s like, Holly, because she buddied with me to do something a few weeks ago. And I’m Holly, I need to pick up this medication.

I’m just not that into it. She’s like, Scot, I’ll be your buddy system. Let’s just drive there right now. This was a video call, you know? And so people with ADHD is like having that buddy is amazing. So I like, all right, I put the phone down and yeah, it’s having that awareness. So that’s an awesome strategy. Yeah, good.

Rob (16:37.934)
How great is that? Yeah.

Rob (16:48.91)
Well, it’s worked well for me anyway. And we had a team member do a presentation similar to the way you’ve described it, but a bit more in depth, like a straight up slides. And I had a very similar response to that presentation as you did when you were being taught about it from that coach person. So I think that’s just really cool.

Scot (17:03.565)
Yeah. Yeah. So I can tell you a little bit more about my like kind of use of AI. Yeah.

Rob (17:10.86)
Well, before we let it go though, because I think it’s important. Like I think one of the things, you know, whether the people are listening to this or if they share it with somebody, but in the past, a lot of people have framed ADHD in a way where it holds them back. And the idea of, you know, running a multimillion dollar, any enterprise, landscape business, any entrepreneurial endeavor is almost like out of reach because there’s this thing that holds them back.

Scot (17:25.78)
Mm-hmm.

Rob (17:39.642)
And that is just not the case with you, not to say it hasn’t given you challenges, but you’ve really done it. And so what do you say to folks that kind of look at these things as hindrances to life versus another way to look at it?

Scot (17:55.906)
Yeah, yeah, it sucks. I mean, I gave you all these things that are like negative, right? I and it sucks that we define ADHD as like, lack of attention. Because the flip side of that is like, it’s a frickin superpower. Right? I can Yeah, yeah, I can have 50 tabs open in my head.

Rob (18:12.29)
That’s what I’m talking about.

Scot (18:17.119)
and I can step into something, right? I can make decisions quickly. Like most of the time, I’m not scared about chaos. You know, and so I think for people that are entrepreneurs or lead businesses, that’s a really powerful position. And it kind of makes me think, is it that the book Traction? It talks about you need like a visionary and I think an integrator.

Rob (18:41.454)
Mm-hmm.

Rob (18:46.19)
100%.

Scot (18:47.001)
You know, and when I read that, I’m like, my gosh, well, it’s basically your person with ADHD that sees all this that can have the ideas. And then you need somebody that’s really stable and it’s good follow through as your integrator. So,

you know, I’m a part of a been a part of a few different peer groups and you know, ADHD comes up sometimes and you know, people just laugh at it. They’re like, we’ve all got ADHD. And maybe so it’s like I can, I feel I can tell some of the guys that are like, definitely I see how his brain works. He’s very quick to like volunteer for stuff. Those are like classic kind of ADHD sign. So yeah, I mean, I think it’s a, it definitely is superpower.

Rob (19:27.022)
Mmm.

Rob (19:32.802)
Love that.

Scot (19:33.625)
to get stuff done. it’s about like harnessing that, right? Yeah.

Rob (19:35.458)
Well, and then, and then throw, well, and throw, throw some AI on it and watch you go. So last time we were speaking, you were just mentioning like you found like this, you know, partnering crime or Robin to your Batman, leveraging these tools. So yeah, help us understand what is it that you’re doing? That’s really kind of set you free or giving you the opportunity to level up.

Scot (19:49.159)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s it’s there’s nothing like earth shattering earth really like So, let me yeah, so the first thing I just want to talk about like it kind of chat GPT I’ve used I mean I use chat GPT a lot. So first of all It knows me really really well

Cause I’ve been using it for, I mean, almost two years. My wife is tired of talking to me about the same problems like after 20 years, right? So I now have this partner I can talk to things about, but, uh, you know, the first thing I want to say about chat GPT, if somebody’s really interested in using chat GPT, they should buy the paid version. Um, because in the paid version, you can create project folders.

Rob (20:46.605)
percent.

Scot (20:50.975)
And in project folders, that’s where I get some really incredible work done.

You open up a project folder and you know, there are the three dots. I think it’s called an ellipse. You go up there and a new menu comes up and you can put in like your instructions for that project. And so if I wanted to make a project folder for coming on this podcast, I go up there and I could just write a description of like, hey, this is what this project’s coming. This is how I want you to help me kind of respond

to these questions. You can upload like I if I want I didn’t do this, but you could have uploaded like past episodes of your podcast. So it has this whole context of how to kind of handle the conversation with you. So I’ll talk a little bit more about some of the specific ways I do it, but having the paid version, the project folder, because then it’s going to remember like all of your conversations.

Rob (21:55.95)
Yeah, it’s like it’s like contextual rule sets for different components of work.

Scot (21:58.71)
Yes. Yeah. And so then it’s but it’s also going to remember all your conversations. So it’s it’s continually building and learning about you. So the other thing I do, I like I don’t type in chat GPT anymore. I always just use the little microphone button and I dictate into it because it’s like it’s so much faster for me. So what’s been amazing

is like on the tactical side of business. You know, there were emails I used to just

take days to answer because they were like, I knew what the answer was, but maybe with the like dyslexia and I just like couldn’t get the words out. And so they just sit, you know, but now if there’s, you know, just a challenging email or something that just needs a little bit of thought, I can open up chat GPT, I can just do a brain dump around kind of my answer. And just talking through that, I usually get clarity. Right?

I hit send and it kind of frames the conversation for me. And I’m like, oh, that’s a little bit off. So I’ll do another prompt. And usually in like five or 10 minutes, it’ll get to like the right answer. I mean, that’s just something that in the past would have taken me like who I am 45 minutes. I get there. Like I’m a smart guy. the end, you know, I’m, but

Rob (23:27.466)
Yeah, brilliant.

Scot (23:30.665)
And so what it’s allowed me to do is like respond to things quickly. you know, and if it’s in front of me, like the second it, it kind of goes off my radar, that’s where I often don’t come back to it. So I’ve been able to respond to things like much more quickly and they haven’t set, or sat with that project folder, you know,

Some of the coolest things that I’ve done with it is I do all my initial consultations with potential clients on Zoom. After we’ve like pre-qualified them in an email, I have a 30 to 45 minute Zoom call with them.

I take that, you know, I have that zoom call recorded from AI read or read AI. I take that transcript and I dump it into a custom folder that I’ve created and the chat there, I’ve told it, hey, take this transcript and I want you to then organize this transcript and do the output this way.

And, know, I want you to flag if I don’t talk to the client about these things at the bottom of the summary, I want you to flag all the things that I didn’t talk about. And so, you know, every zoom call now gets the same summary, I put it in the lead folder. So when we go out and meet a client or designer goes, they just open that up. And they see that whole call, everyone’s kind of laid out the same, we flag that, we didn’t talk about a design budget, or we didn’t talk about permitting.

And that’s been amazing. You know, have another folder that’s just SOPs.

Rob (25:10.148)
it’s game. It’s like a real time sales coach. It’s so good.

Scot (25:19.595)
that I’ve created. That if I want to kind of create an SOP, I’ll just open it up and I’ll be like, hey, I want to create an SOP about this. First thing it’ll ask me, Scot, is this a short version SOP or a long version SOP? Because I’d like put that in there, right? And we’ve talked about just what a short version long version is. And the incredible thing is like, we I wrote one recently about kind of gluing pipe and like chat

CPT it knew all the nuances for gluing pipe, you know about deburring it Putting the letters on the pipe up. I was just really impressed And if you don’t even know like I want to do something I’m not even sure the prompts to use you just tell chat CPT. Hey, I want to do this like ask me three questions about creating this that

You know that I can answer and again, I’m using just the voice dictation mode in all of this because I find it really fast. The scary thing with this I find right now that I’m much more. I’m much slower, even slower writing than I used to be and I have more of a mental block when I need to kind of write something. Because I think. Yeah, yeah, I mean I’m using my mouth and I’m like dictating and you know, I think one of the things.

Rob (26:21.964)
Yeah.

Rob (26:36.931)
because you’re not using the muscle as much?

Scot (26:45.963)
Well, yeah, so that’s an interesting thing that I’ve kind of noticed. And I agree in creative writing, like I’m a really good writer, but I’ve just, it’s a little bit harder now and I’m a little less confident.

Rob (26:51.789)
Amazing.

Rob (27:03.346)
I mean, it just has a practical question though. Do you dictate your writing ever? Like, do ever just use dictating tools?

Scot (27:10.451)
I have in the past like with Microsoft. But I found it’s dictating in a chat GP is chat GPT is so much better because I’ll stumble over words and I’ll just be like, I want to write an email and I’ll be going it’s like, that’s not what I said. I really wanted to say it like this. And it’ll just be one continuous dictation. And I’ll be like, all right, chat, just focus on this last thing I said.

Rob (27:15.425)
Right.

Rob (27:23.114)
No, it’s perfect.

Rob (27:39.34)
Right. And then it’ll grab it. That’s cool. It’s way more efficient. All right. So AI has been this really cool kind of unleash your brain and get it organized tool. And you’re you’re you’re really leaning into this business owner, you know, building this company. So what now that you’re aware of the things that you need to be, you know, working on.

Scot (27:40.189)
And so it’ll grab it. Yeah. Yeah.

Scot (27:54.221)
the

Scot (27:58.434)
Yeah

Scot (28:05.281)
Mm-hmm.

Rob (28:05.631)
and you’ve been working on this idea of becoming like, stepping into that ownership over the years, like what are the key components? Like you kind of said at the beginning about how, instead of you being the solution, you got to build up the people and the systems to be the solution. So like, how does one make that come to life?

Scot (28:10.067)
you

Scot (28:24.737)
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, one, just, you know, being able to reply to emails quickly, right, that just frees up more time for me, right. One thing is I’ve noticed, you know, at the end of the day, every day, we get photos from all of our build team leaders. And I’ll look at the photos and be like, man, that’s not really like the way it should be. But I’ll see three of those things. And I’ll be like, you know,

I just kind of let him go. It’s like, can’t do everything all the time. but this will be something where I can just dictate, you know, in two minutes, a little brain dump about this and why it is, and I’ll kind of organize. might do one or two, quick edits and then I, you know, can send something out. And so the, like the, there’s a lot less friction, you know, you get what you settle for. And so this helps me,

just kind of help kind of maintain the standards. think. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob (29:25.867)
And then in terms of like the overall business approach, you know, this is a tool is one thing, but what are you doing? Like what is Scot Eckley focused on when it comes to building up people and systems inside the company?

Scot (29:36.685)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So there are a few things.

Scot (29:45.982)
You know, I know your podcasts often and like, Hey, what have you been reading lately? And what I’ve been reading lately, and it was a, like a game changer. And it was because one of your guests, maybe three months ago, he mentioned extreme leadership or stream ownership. I think it was extreme ownership by that Jaco Navy seal guy. I read it. my, it honestly, I read the first chapter it like.

Rob (29:50.753)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Rob (30:07.521)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hadn’t heard of it either. That was the first time it had been introduced to me.

Scot (30:15.915)
profoundly changed me because I think I used to be a play a little bit The victim card it’s like man. They didn’t do it the way I wanted I thought it was so clear and his whole premise is like man the team failure like that points back to you like the owner or the leader not that but it’s the leader and That’s been really profound and a little later in that book that talks about

You know, Navy SEAL operation, those guys all meet before they like go on a mission. They go on their mission and then they come back and they meet and they talk about it. And I realized that as a company right now, if you take that to like a construction project, there’s pre-planning, there’s the project, and then there’s post review. Right now we have that like very independent. Those pieces don’t talk at all. And I’m like, man, I want like,

I see the value of getting these pieces to talk. with kind of chat GPT, I put together kind of this little training. We called it like our build team efficiency group. And I talked to like, hey, this is what I want to do. And we really want to create something where.

during pre-construction planning, it’s not just the estimator, but the project manager and the build team leaders involved. And those guys have to be able to look at plans and approve the budget before we send it to the client and get them involved earlier. know, yeah. So ChatGP, you know, I’ve met with the guys a couple times each time, you know, I’ve worked through, I don’t want to see an agenda for each of these meetings. And, you know, the beautiful thing with ChatGP is it’ll,

Rob (31:49.771)
Love that.

Scot (32:05.135)
You know take your ideas and a reframe them and give it to you back in different wording and what it told me is like Scot, so your leaders and leaders their job is really to like see around corners I’m like, yes, that’s what leadership is. It’s like looking around corners. And so and that’s this phrase I’ve kind of adopted over the last few months. So yeah, so there’s

Rob (32:26.123)
Love it.

Scot (32:31.033)
You know, I’ve used it to put that kind of build team efficiency kind of kind of framework and training together. We’ve started restarted garden care as a service, SEI is offering. You know, I spent a lot of time just thinking about.

what I want that department to be, like kind of what the values are. you know, so there’s a lot of that, that went into and we’ve hired a great manager to kind of start that company, a company or that side of the company, you know, old Scot without AI, you know, right now there’s I have an employee that I just put on a PIP.

and old Scot, like I wouldn’t even have been able to do that or had the bandwidth. And probably in 90 minutes, I wrote something that I thought was amazing and gave the right framework to really like, hopefully like encourage this person. yeah, yeah.

Rob (33:40.565)
So to be able to coach them up instead of out.

Scot (33:45.408)
And I just like, I wouldn’t have done that in the past. I wouldn’t have had the bandwidth or it would have taken too long. so instead this relationship would have probably just deteriorated to the point of where I’m like, get frustration. So, I mean, that’s been like a huge win for me. And then, you know, I’ve been using it to help kind of write where hiring new positions, kind of write job descriptions.

You know, I went to this industry event a couple weeks ago and there’s a guy sitting at our table and he was like, I’m going to get a, what’s it called when you get a body double, a clone. I’m going to get a clone and I’m going to do these fireside chats that I send out to the company. And like, what the F man. It’s like, I think a lot of people are trying to use it to do stuff they’re not doing right now.

Rob (34:25.793)
Right.

Scot (34:39.341)
And that’s where I’ve done it. I think it’s also, need to start about using it like where you use it to take away things you’re doing right now. Right? Don’t make it be something additive because you’re never going to get there. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob (34:39.437)
Rob (34:51.725)
That’s exactly the.

Rob (34:55.819)
Yeah, streamline, make it more efficient. Take what’s heavy now, make it lighter, start moving faster. I love that. That was the biggest message we shared it with everybody yesterday was this is not meant to be another thing that you need to put on your plate. This is, this is meant to be a thing that makes it so that the things you have to eat are actually smaller in size. So wait, you, you said something, you said something a couple minutes ago that was a bit flabbergasting to some, but I think the best in the world.

Scot (35:08.759)
Yeah.

Scot (35:14.357)
Yep. Yeah, very true.

Rob (35:25.505)
talk about how important it is, you said you’re giving yourself time to think.

Scot (35:32.65)
yeah, I’m giving myself the time to think and really,

Scot (35:41.974)
And like I think partner, right, as well. The amazing thing with ChatGPT, right, with somebody with ADHD, right, you kind of start something, you move it 50 miles down the road and then you stop and you get kind of seduced by the next thing. But with ChatGPT and having these project folders, right, I can get started on something.

have a great kind of conversation, you know, have certain stuff framed. It can kind of just sit there. I know right where it is and I can come back to it and pick it up and just move on from that point and it’s great, you know.

Rob (36:18.487)
I love it. And the idea though that you’re giving yourself, I think one of the cool things I found when using the tools is that the thinking becomes so productive because it becomes so articulate so quickly with a few prompts or narrations and dictating and speaking back and forth, the product of the result of that thinking can be so enriched that it’s almost addictive to want to keep moving.

Scot (36:27.821)
Mm-hmm.

Scot (36:32.182)
Yeah.

Scot (36:38.722)
Yeah.

yeah, I mean, I there’s sometimes like I’ve been up till like 130 at night because I like I love this right and it’s just it’s fast paced. Right. It’s giving me like good feedback. I do want to share one other thing. It’s like so chat GPT knows me really well. And somebody said to me you want to do something really scary. Ask chat GPT tell chat GPT to tell you what your blind spots are. So

Rob (37:10.464)
You’ll love that.

Scot (37:11.689)
Yeah, a little while ago I did and I said, don’t sugarcoat anything, tell me my blind spots. And it did. And I told my wife, she’s like, she was kind of scared that like, really, you’re going that deep with this thing. But it’s been this amazing tool. And you know, one thing that I’ve done for this year,

is my whole goal of this year is I my overarching goal is just to simplify things. You know, I said I chase like all the unicorns over all the rainbows and I really want to simplify and

You know, I told chat GPT what my goals are, kind of my personal health and, you know, family goals that are really important and really focusing on like building the team. you know, I started off by saying like,

old Scot, like I love, you know, I don’t think I’m the superhero, but trying to be the superhero and solve everything and fix everything and people need me because that feels really good. Right. For an ADHDer, it’s like, that’s just cocaine. but for this year, it’s really, there’s a, for me, a really strong focus. It’s like, I’m not going to tell people what to do. I’m going to try and ask questions. I’m going to let them make the decisions, you know? So I’ve, I’ve, I’ve told chat GPT all this and like,

Rob (38:25.951)
right?

Scot (38:41.103)
Like everything it frames, it’s kind of, if I’m asking it’s something that’s not tactical, it kind of frames it back to me. hey, remember you want to do it this way this year. So don’t do that. Don’t just jump in there, Scot. Like what are the questions you should, so as I said, it knows me really well.

Rob (38:55.642)
dude.

Scot (39:02.101)
And Rob, there’ll even be times, you know, I talked about like how I can have 50 tabs open in my head and I’ll just, I’ll get a little overwhelmed sometimes and I’ll just, I’ll talk into it. I’ll be like, Hey, I’ve got these eight things to do. I’m like feeling a little overwhelmed. Like what? Just give me a quick pep talk and it’ll like, it’ll walk me back. It’s like, all right, Scot, you can only do two things. Start by having a glass of water. Cause I told it health is really important to me this year.

Rob (39:31.124)
Yeah, yeah.

Scot (39:32.058)
a couple breaths, go for a five minute walk and you know you can’t do all of this so when you come back like here’s how want you to prioritize these things and so it’s honestly this little like coach of the moment and it’s for me I mean it’s it’s amazing I mean probably other people don’t need that but I really need that kind of reset and focus.

Rob (39:57.354)
I asked it,

Scot (39:57.75)
And I can’t do it myself. Like, I don’t have the power to be like, I’m going to stop and, but if somebody tells me, I’ll do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob (40:03.341)
take a drink and go for a walk for five minutes. A year and a half ago, maybe I asked what am I missing? And it was really just about the fact that, know, we’re a bit like as a company specifically, it was like how to position intrigue. And it was like, you you’re just, you’re practical, you’re a tactician, you know, you’re systematic and, but you’re missing an opportunity to create this very high position, you know.

Scot (40:11.341)
Mm.

Rob (40:31.185)
that is not just be a marketing company, but be like the landscape marketing company. And so from that stemmed a bunch of ideas and then discussions and we’ve really, really leaned into it and it’s been remarkably helpful. So, I mean, it’s not necessarily, it’s not all the things, it just helps with a bit of direction and a little bit of self-awareness, which I think comes full circle back to this idea of you or me or whoever entrepreneur being the bottleneck inside of.

Scot (40:40.556)
Yeah.

Scot (40:48.482)
Yeah.

Rob (40:59.511)
but a business, primary constraint, that self-awareness is almost the first step to figuring out how to get past that. Because if we understand what we’re good at, we understand what we’re not, we can start being intentional with how we start to bring people around us and what we focus on. So I just really appreciate you sharing, man. I think you’re amazing. I know you’re just doing amazing things. And I know you mentioned extreme ownership.

Scot (41:00.589)
Thanks.

huh.

Rob (41:23.873)
But as a book reference, you reference another guest. now you have to give us one that you think is awesome before we let you go. Yeah. Speaker podcast. Can’t say this one. Ted talk, anything.

Scot (41:31.521)
book?

my gosh. Well, I do. So, yeah, so, right, everything, most of what I learn about these days is through other people. And so there is a guest on a Jeffrey Scot podcast, and he mentioned this guy, Craig Groschel, I think is his name. And

Rob (41:46.775)
Mm-hmm.

Rob (41:54.765)
Okay.

Scot (41:57.333)
He has this awesome leadership podcast. He’s a pastor and he has like many churches, but the focus of his podcast, his faith is a part of that, but it’s a great podcast wherever you kind of fall on the religious spectrum. yeah.

Rob (42:15.787)
Well, and faith-based leadership, servant leadership, I I don’t care what religion you are, it’s still beautiful perspective. So sorry, keep going.

Scot (42:23.487)
So I love listening to his podcast and he had his most recent episode was five lessons that he’s learned over the last 10 years. And the thing that really stuck with me is like sometimes when you’re seeking clarity, what you really need is courage. And I’m like, my gosh. So that has been like just.

I’ve been thinking that a lot lately when people have asked me like kind of when I needed to make decisions on things and I’ve not quite been ready to I’m like, all right. Courage over clarity. So yeah. Yes, yes, it’s just it comes out once a month.

Rob (43:01.175)
Love that. And it’s the Craig Groschel Leadership Podcast. Epic.

Scot (43:07.437)
I’ve never subscribed to them, but you can like Email in and get the show note or like a little kind of worksheet that goes along with it Yeah

Rob (43:18.229)
Epic. I’ll have to take a listen. I haven’t heard of that one. So I’m definitely looking forward to it, I really, really appreciate you taking the time to do this one, Scot, and everything that you do. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to another episode of the I Am Landscape Growth Podcast.

Scot (43:23.243)
good.

Scot (43:31.49)
Thanks, Rob.