Kyle Gillette and the SAGE Mindset: Resilience in Life and Leadership Episode 035

Stephanie talks to Kyle Gillette. In fact, after an incredible conversation with Kyle, he became her business coach!

Kyle Gillette has helped small business owners and leaders around the world to take their businesses from good to great. He is an ICF certified coach, behavioral analyst, and creator of the SAGE Mindset Leadership framework that helps people gain clarity, build confidence, and generate new clientele.

As a mindset coach who specializes in helping clients understand how their thoughts affect their lives and business, Kyle understands what it takes for someone’s mindset to change.

His focus is on helping his clients build powerful self-awareness in their life and business. Create extreme accountability to achieve big goals, dreams, and results with a mindset of growth that fosters empowerment for others so they can have the most influence possible!

He’s the host of the SAGE Mindset™ podcast, developer of the SAGE Leadership Framework™ the SAGE Mindset App, and owner of Gillette Solutions - a coaching and consulting organization.

https://www.sagemindset.com/
https://www.sagemindset.com/accountability-guide/

Coaching is something that can't be really understood until it is experienced. Additionally, not all coaching is the same. This is why Kyle offers discovery calls to anyone seriously interested in hiring a business/mindset coach.

Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean and how to we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma; and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries, and, sometimes a few rants, to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way, and you want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!

https://stephanieolson.com

INSPIRE your team to LEAD WITH SUCCESS and MOTIVATE others with Stephanie bringing 20+ years of speaking experience. If you need to EMPOWER, ENGAGE, and EDUCATE your people-Book Stephanie as your speaker today!

https://www.stephanieolson.com/ask-stephanie-to-speak

Everyone has resilience, but what does that mean, and how do we use it in life and leadership? Join Stephanie Olson, an expert in resiliency and trauma, every week as she talks to other experts living lives of resilience. Stephanie also shares her own stories of addictions, disordered eating, domestic and sexual violence, abandonment, and trauma, and shares the everyday struggles and joys of everyday life. As a wife, mom, and CEO she gives commentaries and, sometimes, a few rants to shed light on what makes a person resilient. So, if you have experienced adversity in life in any way and want to learn how to better lead your family, your workplace, and, well, your life, this podcast is for you!

https://stephanieolson.com

Transcript

Stephanie Olson: 0:03

Welcome to resilience in life and leadership with your host Stephanie Olson, speaker, author addictions sexual violence and resilience expert. Hello, I'm excited to introduce to you Kyle Gillette. Kyle has helped small business owners and leaders around the world to take their businesses from good to great. He is an ICF certified coach behavioral analysis and creator of the sage mindset leadership framework that helps people gain clarity, build confidence and generate new clientele. As a mindset coach who specializes in helping clients understand how their thoughts affect their lives and business. Kyle understands what it takes for someone's mindset to change. And the sage mindset leadership framework is amazing. And Kyle just really kind of breaks it down and explains exactly what it's all about, so that others can have the most influence possible. So let's welcome Kyle Jillette Hello, and welcome to resilience in life and leadership. And I'm excited to introduce Kyle Gillette to you kayo. Welcome.

Kyle Gillette: 1:20

He's definitely thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Yes.

Stephanie Olson: 1:23

So you are doing some cool things in coaching and business leadership and all of that good stuff. So how are you helping? Well, first of all, tell me a little bit about how you got into that, and then how you're helping business owners and leaders around the world right now.

Kyle Gillette: 1:46

The backstory is based on my experience working in a men's mentoring program for about nine years. I got the interesting story to that is when I was in college, I went to Cal Poly and it's a school on the Sunshine Coast, California. And I was I was sitting in my apartment at this makeshift desk that I made talking to my parents on the phone sitting in a chair similar to the one that I'm sitting in now. Okay, and I was I was 30 pounds overweight, covered in poison oak and about 10 units behind in school and and I had two quarters to figure all that stuff out. Okay, I had no idea what I want to do with my life, no idea what I want to do with with the work future. But I had gone on a trip to India and one of the guys that went from California to India with us, he said, Hey, there's this job opportunity in at this mentoring program. And I said okay, well tell me about it. So he told me about it and I went to the interview. And when I went to the interview, it was this beautiful idyllic setting with rolling green hills in the background and I came in in this driveway and it take you take a ride on to the driveway and go over this was a bridge with this beautiful white painted rails on your rights this chain link fence with a bunch of barking dogs and something that what's going on here. And then you get to this this space where there's green lawn and a flagpole. American flagpole. And it's perfect. farmhouse white farmhouse, wraparound porch, summit and walkway up to the front door. And then often the distance is this other set of chain link fences with big dog houses in it? Well, obviously, that is the the nonprofit was supported by a pet resort. And so that's what we're about. But long story short, I did the interview, I was asked on the spot if I wanted the job. I said yes. And then for the next nine years, I was a part of that program and was entered by a gentleman that had run about 30 different businesses and several of them were very successful. So he retired early and bankrolled this nonprofit. And then eventually, the nonprofit started to sustain itself. And I worked through the different positions in the organization while being mentored. And that was my introduction to coaching. There's more to the story, of course, but that was my introduction to coaching.

Stephanie Olson: 4:02

Yeah, so I'm stuck on. So I run a nonprofit in my real world. And I think bankrolling the nonprofit. That sounds amazing. That doesn't happen very often. That's fabulous.

Kyle Gillette: 4:16

Yeah, he supported it, I think for about this is a number kind of I'm making it up a little bit but I think it's fairly accurate. For about five years it was just his wife could continue to be able to put money into it until it became self sustainable. And because we didn't get donations, we it was self sustained. Oh my god. So that was that was pretty cool. And everything that comes with learning how to run a nonprofit plus a business with those actually multiple businesses with inside the nonprofit. So it was good lessons.

Stephanie Olson: 4:47

So you really kind of learned a whole capful of everything with the mentoring with running a business nonprofit. I mean, it was kind of a built in Training Ground really?

Kyle Gillette: 5:02

Yeah. And the beauty of it was, you know, the sage framework, you're talking about accountability in it. And Jack was the is the president and he met with me every Tuesday for at least an hour and a half at lunch and just taught me coached me, schooled me slapped me around a little bit sometimes. It's good for Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So I was I mean, if you cannot, the hours of of lunches, times, nine years, you talk about a school of business. So I'm very, very fortunate to experience that, and then been able to turn that into some of the things that I'm doing now plus bunch of other things.

Stephanie Olson: 5:41

And someone really pouring life into you really, I mean, that's, that's pretty amazing. Well, first talk a little bit, I'm just curious about the mentoring that you were doing to the men that you were working with.

Kyle Gillette: 5:56

So these guys were 18 and 25 year olds, the program still exists, it's a little bit of a different iteration of it now. But when I was there, there would be two guys that lived in the house with up to six other guys. So the two guys were called House leaders, and we helped get, we help them learn everything from job skills, to cooking skills to communication skills, everything in that set of just life. Wow, the goal was at the end of the program, they'd commit six months, and at the end of the program, that they would have what's called a life map. And that life map would answer three questions, where am I? Where do I want to go? And how do I get there in six fundamental areas of life, so you know, mental, spiritual, emotional, physical, etc. And they would have to create a map of where they were gonna go, and how they're gonna get there before they could lead the program. If they had a good life map in place, then they would graduate the program, and then go and pursue that map. So that was the the gist of the program. A lot of the guys had drug and alcohol and various other histories that were rough. Some people didn't, but a lot of them did. And so we had a lot of attrition. But if someone made it all the way through, they tended to have decent success, if not great success afterward, because I'm still in contact with several of the guys.

Stephanie Olson: 7:13

Oh, that's awesome. So when you left? Did you have a plan to start doing your own coaching? Or what did that transaction look like?

Kyle Gillette: 7:24

Okay, so you call me out. So the irony here, because when when I left, my wife, and I, you know, I got married in the middle of all that, and had a couple kids, and my oldest was three. And we didn't want her to be in preschool or to go to school without having grandparents around. But my parents are in California and her parents are up in the Pacific Northwest. And so we had to make a decision, which is possibly the most agonizing a difficult decision of my life. Because I have a I have a really good relationship with my parents, it's even better now than it was before it was already good. But had to give up that relationship to a certain degree. And that sucks. Yeah, definitely, I chose which I wasn't I only, but we chose to move up here. And when we moved, my intention was just simply, if we're going to move from here, I want to have the type of impact that I'm happy that I had at the Alpha Academy, up here in some way, shape, or form. That was that was the vague dream, vague vision with the slight thought that maybe I'd open a pet resort or maybe I started men's mentoring program. And those two pieces haven't happened. But I'm doing this coaching thing instead, which is having that type of impact that I wanted to have.

Stephanie Olson: 8:35

Yeah, and it really is. I mean, it's, it's really very much like mentoring. And so, so tell me about mindset coaching, specifically the sage mindset. Tell me what that is. Yeah, so

Kyle Gillette: 8:49

when I worked in HR at a mega church for two and a half years and got exposed to something called disc assessments, and most people are familiar with those, and if you're not, it's a, it's a behavioral analysis of, of the person. It's not a test, but it looks at your behaviors in four categories. Yeah. So I had the chance to get certified in that, and then another assessment as well. And then I was tasked with doing assessments on everyone that worked at the church, which was over 100 people, wow, I had the opportunity to certain to assess 100 people and do one hour long meetings with each of them to go over the results. So I had this blitz of behavioral analysis and this opportunity to really shape my ability in that. And when I was almost done with that process, I started to do workshops with disk within the church, but also outside of the church. And then I got paid to do it outside the church and I went, Oh, great. Maybe there's something here and then I got engaged in the John Maxwell team. Yeah, yeah, like to them. And I went home. There's something here and so I gave the church notice and eventually stepped away and started my business, but disk isn't mine, I can't do whatever I want with it. Right. And so I took, I took several months to think about okay, what's, what's my thing? What's my tool? What's my whatever. And I had all these I love alliteration and acronyms because it makes for me, my memory is not that great. So it makes it easier for me to remember, right. And I was laying in bed one night, my wife's a nurse, and at the time, she was doing nursing at night. And so she wasn't home. So I'm just in bed at night, and I wake up to a voice, I feel like it was God speaking in the voice said, self awareness. And I went, Oh, okay. And I jumped out of bed, ran into the kitchen, ran past my kids room, rooms, and sat down with a table for the next four hours, shivering in my boxers beginning, the beginnings of the sage framework. That's amazing. So that's kind of the very beginning of what it is now.

Stephanie Olson: 11:01

Okay, that very cool. So tell me about it. What does that what does that look like?

Kyle Gillette: 11:06

So sage stands for for things, and I do this too fast. So I'm gonna slow down a little bit. So sage is self awareness, and accountability, growth, and empowerment. And the way that I describe it is, it's a leadership house, your Sage, grouse, and self awareness is the foundation to leadership. And when I say self awareness, I'm talking about your ability to understand where you're coming from, and your emotions, how you're presenting yourself with your body language, your tone of voice, all that stuff. But also being able to read how other people are bringing it back to you, and then how you're impacting them. So it's a high level of emotional intelligence. And then accountability is the nails. And, and the, I'm sorry, accountability is yeah, the nails and the hammer to keeping your leadership house together with without, without accountability, no matter how beautiful your leadership looks, no matter how much influence you have, the house will crumble, and it's gonna hurt a lot of people in the process. And we've seen this with a number of leaders just even in the recent history, right? Yeah. And then growth is the walls in the roof. And it's the idea that in leadership, there's times where we need to remodel. So sometimes you move while you adjust things, and you have to remodel, the way you do things as you grow and your leadership but also as those that you influenced need you to make adjustments to them, and then they also adjust to you. And then I break the metaphor when I talk about the roof, because there's times when you know, John Maxwell talks about that leadership lid, wanting to blow off, blow the roof off, right, and just grow and expand and become an even more influential and impactful leader. So that's the G, the growth. And then empowerment is the windows and doors. So this is the ability for people to when they're outside of your leadership, they're going, huh, what's going on in there, I want to be a part of that I want to be influenced by that guy or that lady, and be able to grow in my own ways. And then the opposite is true to where the people that you are influencing and empowering. They look out the windows and door and they go, Hmm, I think I'm ready to go do my own thing. And you as a sales leader say Heck yeah, go do it. Because you're so full of empowering people. And your, your abilities aren't tied to the people that you work with. And you're not limited by if people step away, you're empowered, and so are they to stay away. So that's exactly the version. That's the way I like to describe it.

Stephanie Olson: 13:41

I love that. I absolutely love that. And I think that that self awareness piece is so critical because self awareness is one of those interesting things because either you have self awareness initially, and so you can gain that you can really look at that, or you have none. And you need to cultivate it and learn how to I've I've rarely met people with no self awareness, but I have met people with like, seriously, I'm not sure you're quite getting who you are. So I mean, how do you help people cultivate that if they are not quite self aware?

Kyle Gillette: 14:30

One of the, what's called Easy or not easy the right word here, but one of the easier ways to do it is get a get objective data on yourself. Okay, and one way is to use the DISC assessment. I mean, I use that with my clients because they are putting their subjective responses to the assessment, but then the assessment spits out objective data. And so is this way to look at yourself from unquote meta perspective, but also objective glean. So you can go, oh, I guess I am a fast paced person. And sometimes I can be too direct, or I run people over because it's about my agenda all the time. And then obviously, all the positive things that you get from those assessments as well. Right. But that's a really great foundational piece. The other the other thing is vulnerability. It's your willingness to be open to feedback, to be open to perspectives that aren't yours to see things from different angles. So there's a lot of different ways, but I think those two are pretty vital.

Stephanie Olson: 15:33

And being humble, and coachable. Because I think the I think the one key thing I've seen in a lot of people who struggle with self awareness is Yeah, I'm good. I don't need I don't need to learn anymore. I've got it all in the bag. And so that that humility. And I'll tell you that that was one of those things. It wasn't necessarily in my leadership role. But you know, God, and I did a year long study just the two of us on pride, and it was pretty painful. So just say

Kyle Gillette: 16:11

yes, I might you know that that is pride is a rough one. Yeah. It makes me think about when people if they read this really long book, you know, the Bible is a great example of that, because it's a super long book. Yeah, yeah. And they go on and read it. Okay. But there's no way that you can read a book that long, or any really any book, even if it's only 50 pages long, because the author puts so much time and energy into that. And obviously, God did as well when he wrote the Bible that there's so much more to it than just I read it once. And I think that when when, as leaders, we go, oh, no, I know myself, I've got it figured out. That's a big problem. Because your your owner's manual is complicated. Yeah, it's very complicated. And you need other people to help interpret the instructions, because sometimes it's hard to read our own instructions. I mean, how many men don't read?

Stephanie Olson: 17:05

That is so true. And I gotta tell ya, I might be guilty of that. Occasionally, I just, yeah, I'm not even go there. Okay. So but that goes back to kind of that accountability and growth piece. Because having people around you that are solid, you know, leaders that may be even, you know, more mature in their leadership, have more wisdom, having those people around to say, Okay, now, this is what I was thinking, is that something? Am I off the rails? You know, things like that, that accountability piece? Can you speak to that? And what that looks like for leaders?

Kyle Gillette: 17:51

Yes. So I love this subject. It's probably my favorite when it comes to Sage because it's it is the heart of of sage. It's the heart of what makes someone successful. And fundamentally, the reason it makes someone successful this, I think this is truth, this truth came from a friend of mine. And he asked me what, what makes what makes someone successful? And I'm like, I don't know what I mean, just a blanket statement. So like, that's kind of a crazy question. And then he and I said, I don't know what what is it? And he said that it's to do what you say you're going to do. And I'm like, sat back, I think we're on a phone, I think I remember just like pausing for a moment. It's true. And that's accountability. That's the heart that's integrity as the heart of accountability is to do what you say you're going to do. But I love talking about it. Because I'm very practical. And I want people to have tools, I want people to have a simple process they can follow to to be more accountable to have the sage approach in their life. And so I'll briefly describe what I call accountability pass. So another acronym, so we're doing compound acronyms.

Stephanie Olson: 19:01

Okay. All right. I got it. So

Kyle Gillette: 19:05

the past stands for for things. And the first P is passive. The A is active, the SS structures are stuff and the S itself. So before I jump into the beginning of the acronym, I realized that no one can make me do anything and no one can make you do anything. And we need to start with commitment we have to commit. And if anybody's watching the Olympics, right now, there's a lot of people that are there's a lot of athletes, that they're doing the snowboarding and the skiing and they're doing those enormous jumps. It's crazy what they're doing. Yeah, but they're going so fast that when they get into the trough of that drunk, jump, no matter how hard they try to stop themselves, they're still gonna go off that jump and if they try to stop themselves, it's going to be a disaster. Or if they just own it and commit, they're going to do the jump and they're going to have a way better chance of success. And that's the same thing when it comes to accountability. You'd have to commit. First you have to make your commitment to the project, that goal, your intentions, your integrity, whatever it is, you make that commitment. So that's really the self piece. But to help you get there, the other three pieces are like a check engine light in your car. Passive accountability is you're telling people, the why behind what you're trying to achieve. So Stephanie, when you think about some of the things that you have going on in your business, or your life right now, what is it maybe a simpler thing that you're wanting to achieve this quarter this year?

Stephanie Olson: 20:34

We are looking at internal growth. So instead of externally, just, we've been growing like crazy, so now we're trying to build growth within our team.

Kyle Gillette: 20:44

Okay, so the next piece of this is now you know, you're trying to create internal growth, growth within a team, which then goes why, what, what, what makes you want to do that? What's the story behind? Wanting to grow internally? Right,

Stephanie Olson: 21:01

right. Do you want me to answer? So if you got an answer? Yeah, yeah, I do. Yeah. Because we have been growing so quickly. And at such a fast pace, that we realize that we have almost neglected, you know, really looking internally and training our staff, you know, with, with just true excellence, because the growth has been like this. And so we're taking this year to just stop that external growth, and really just invest in our staff.

Kyle Gillette: 21:33

That's it right there. That last phrase was it that's the story that you get to tell the people that you're growing your team, because you want to invest in them? That's the story. Yeah. And you share that story to 2025 30 people, and not everybody is going to care, let's be honest, and everybody cares about your story. But if you just tell them, you're going to do internal growth, they're like, so. But if you say you're investing in your people, because they you haven't been in the last couple years, and you really want to see them grow. That's a story that people get on board with. And then they follow up with you a week later and say, Hey, how's it going? With that grossed up? And what's your team doing? What are they up to? And that creates this whole different level of accountability for you, because you know, they're gonna come back around and ask you, not everybody that, but enough of them will. So you, you got to know your story, that What's the reason behind what you're doing? Obviously, there's the bigger why, for all that we do. But right, we need to find the smaller wise, if you will, behind these other things that we're trying to achieve. So that's passive love, that act of accountability is taking that same story and sharing it with someone two to three people typically at the most, and asking them and saying, Hey, this is what I'm trying to achieve. And this is why I would love for you to support me on a weekly or bi weekly basis. And it doesn't have to be this technical, but to support me in achieving this, and I would love to return that accountability to you. So that's essentially what you're doing. And you could say it in whatever way you want. But then you would meet with them on the phone, and in person, or obviously, like you and I are on Zoom, right. But it can't be text messages. It can't be emails, it needs to be quote, eyeball to eyeball, or at least your whole that your goal. Otherwise, it's not active. And the reason it's active is because they are coming to you and you're going to them and you're having this purposeful conversation about progress being made hiccups that you're bumping into, and discussing what can shift as you help them with what they're trying to achieve and what and they help you. So that's, that's active, okay. And then structures are the things that we put in place to help us achieve these things. So an example would be a contract that you write with yourself, or a contract that you write with your team and say, This is what you can expect of me. And then you sign it, Stephanie and say, I'm giving this to all of you, I don't know how many team members you have, but you give it to every team member. And now they know that that's what they can expect to do. That's a structure that creates super high accountability. You can do it with yourself with to do lists with calendaring stuff, obviously, as you meet with people that's a calendar is its own accountability. And then it can be as simple as putting your gym bag in your shotgun of your car. So that would after work, you go to the gym. Yeah, right. It's just the simple things that we put in place to create accountability. And then of course, self is the last one. And I already mentioned that and that's all about commitment. So that's, that's accountability past it took a little longer to describe it than maybe intended.

Stephanie Olson: 24:29

No, that's fabulous. Because you can use that for every facet of your life. I mean, that just really and you just kind of use it for accountability with working out and you can use that with parenting with business. That's I love that. I need to write that down though because I'll forget I'm terrible with acronyms. I am the worst but for some reason, but that is I love that I can remember the word pass that a little mindset

Kyle Gillette: 25:00

a little bit mindset coaching right here. Okay. Any more?

Stephanie Olson: 25:03

Oh, sorry. Yes. Good. I'm really good at acronyms.

Kyle Gillette: 25:08

There we go. That's tough. Yeah, you could you create, I mean, it's cognitive dissonance, the more cognitive dissonance, excuse me, I know what I'm trying to say here. You can create, the better because especially if it's positive, obviously, we want positive, right? Your subconscious is forced to go wait a second, you said you're good at acronyms. But do you know Do you know what ESPN stands for? Do you know what do you remember what past stands for? And then your subconscious says, Well, you told me I'm good at it. And so it works to get you to be better at it. And that's an example. All

Stephanie Olson: 25:41

right. Okay. So and, and that's self talk. That's huge. Anyway, with what we tell ourselves what we are, yeah. Okay. Very good. Now, let me ask you a question. Because you were talking about accountability and putting those structures in place and committing? What about knowing when to say no, I have heard people say, and not that long ago, I just heard someone who is doing incredible things. But she made the comment, say yes, always say yes. And I thought, oh, that's because if I said yes to everything, I would not show up to a lot of things. So speak to that if you can,

Kyle Gillette: 26:31

sir. I think a lot of people think about the why. And they want to say figure out your why I think that's important. Yeah, for sure. It might be number number two or three on my list personally. But what's what's important is the who I believe the who is the most important in my life, it starts with God that starts with Jesus, but then it comes down to me and my family, it are the next two, if I can get the WHO dialed in properly. And I don't mean, I don't mean, dialed in, meaning that they that I'm controlling the way my kids behave, or the way things happen with my wife, whatever, I just mean that my mind is right here to relate to the hoop. Exactly. That's the first piece. And then second, that your life is not your business and your business is not your life, if that's where we stay as leaders, we're Karina huge disservice to those that we lead because they are a who in our lives, and that their their humaneness as they, whatever they're doing whatever they're doing for you, or whatever you're doing. For them, it's about the person in the in the coaching world, they teach you to coach the person, not the problem. transformation comes by coaching the person. Problem solving comes by coaching the problem. But transformation is what ultimately I'm in my business for not for solving problems. That's a byproduct, right? But it's again, it's about the WHO piece, and if we can get that correct. And get our hearts right, as relates to that, then we're good to go. And the way you do that, is you do it with accountability, you bring the right people in your life. And there's another portion of that accountability that I didn't mention, which is the board of advisors. Do you have a personal board of advisors and I don't mean a board that sits at executive table, I mean, a group of five to seven people that you can really lean on and trust to give you that perspective, that advice, it can be a coach, it can be a family member, it could be a business owner, whatever. But to keep yourself from saying yes to often I think that's a big piece of it is figuring out the who. And there's some tactical things as well that that I teach people to do to help with that. But I think it starts with who

Stephanie Olson: 28:43

I love that and and especially, you know, so as a believer, I think there are some real not, there are real strong differences that sometimes world leadership doesn't necessarily understand. And that's the Okay, I'm surrendering this to you that this is your business or your organization. And you know what, Jesus, I'm gonna let you run it. And so if it's Holy Spirit run, then that creates a whole different set of, okay, this is the direction I'm going so that who piece is so critical. Because if you're a believer, that should be the real that the where everything.

Kyle Gillette: 29:35

Yeah, I have a I have a presentation tomorrow that I'm doing and that I can't remember the title of it off top my head, but there's a part in the middle of it that I ask who is the real CEO of your business? And obviously, it's tugging at what we're talking about here. And this that question came to me it didn't really come to me and someone brought it to me, I should say, on a coaching conversation. I was working with this coach Her name's Kate. And she's she's really a good coach and she doesn't give herself enough credit. But anyway, he's a great coach. And and we gotten in the middle of this discussion, conversation and it moved towards okay. How do you know where to go with your business? And who do you turn to and all these things? Because leadership is convenient, very

Stephanie Olson: 30:18

isolating, very lonely.

Kyle Gillette: 30:20

Yeah, it's hard. That's why accountability. So huge, but but it's also lonely in those moments as well, because you can't just pick up the phone every time when you're feeling lonely or stuck on a decision. And at the end of that conversation, the result of it was I needed to have an 8080 Excuse me a 30 minute SEO conversation every week. And what that what that became is I meet with God every day. And if you're not someone that is a Christian background, this still works. You just meet with yourself. And it's super powerful. But what I do is for 30 minutes from at 830, on Monday, for the last I think it's been 16 weeks, I met with God and I asked, I read a prayer verse or something like that. And then I go through and we we look at, there's reflection time, there's replying time, like requesting time, excuse me, and there's relaxing time. And, and during those three phases, and there's no particular order, necessarily, but during those three phases, and allows me to kind of figure out what's going on in the business and where things should go. And I've gotten clarity on pricing. I've gotten clarity on the book that I'm writing, I've gotten clarity on the app that's been developed, and just peace in general. And and it's like, if, if you think about just I'm gonna get on a soapbox for a second here. But if you think about how we're supposed to tie what, yeah, whatever, whatever people's perspectives are on that, let's just say we're supposed to, okay, whatever. A tithe is 10% and 10% of a 40 hour week is four hours. Okay, so can I give them 30 minutes of those four hours? You don't I mean, and I know that's probably not even biblically. True, but we need to give ourselves Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie Olson: 32:03

Yeah, exactly. Well, and even in, you know, like you said, whether whether you're, you're talking biblical or not, even that perspective, we have a consultant that comes in and does, you know, kind of that operational system stuff. And there is a spot where we are supposed to as leaders take time out of our week. So every month, we have maybe, you know, we're supposed to have an hour or something where we just really reflect on the month, it could be a week, I'm doing it wrong, but it's just you're just supposed to reflect on that time. And that gives you the opportunity to think about okay, what can I do differently? What can I do better? What, you know, all those things. I think that's so important, but hard to do sometimes.

Kyle Gillette: 32:57

Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned those questions, which makes me think about this other thing that I do I do weekly review sounds like you do as well, that's extremely powerful looks at the vision values, goals, those types of things, but part of it is I do something called a mole. Oh, another acronym. So I'm just jamming your brain was?

Stephanie Olson: 33:16

Seriously Okay, so far. Sage pass Molo. Okay, go ahead. You got it.

Kyle Gillette: 33:23

jumble people's brains with all these acronyms. Hopefully you got some bunch of listeners that do appreciate acronyms. And for those of you. And if you don't, I'm sorry. But that's how my brain works. Now.

Stephanie Olson: 33:34

I think they're good. I think they're good. Yeah.

Kyle Gillette: 33:37

So Marlowe is more of less of, and it's the idea of asking, a lot of people have heard of this before. But it's the idea of asking five questions about a particular topic. I've learned it's really important to get very specific. And I do this weekly on Saturdays. But essentially, I pick a topic, personal professional doesn't matter. The last What did I do, like on Saturday? Oh, man, can I remember? I was focusing on the website development. Yeah. And so I said to myself, Okay, what should I do more of? What should I do less of? What should I start doing? What should I stop doing? And what should I keep doing? And these are great questions to ask only if you get real specific. If you don't, then it's too nebulous, and it becomes overwhelming. Right, right. The other key I've learned I've done this for like four years. So I've learned a lot from this process. But the other thing I've learned is, you don't want to create any more than three at the most five actions from your answers to your questions. Otherwise, you're really overwhelmed. So because when you get more than even more than three can be overwhelming. So when you get any more than three you become you get to this place of like, I'm not going to do it because it's too many. But if you have three then you could actually tackle those over the next few weeks or the next week, right and make some real progress. So on that particular topic

Stephanie Olson: 35:02

that is so good, do you have any advice or suggestions or maybe even an acronym of how we can better predict our time, that's probably my biggest downfall, I'll say, I'm gonna do this. And I can totally get that done by tomorrow. And then I realize, Okay, that wasn't even a realistic goal for myself that I need, you know, so much more time to get this piece accomplished.

Kyle Gillette: 35:35

You said better predict our time. I like that. So I've heard I might screw this up a little bit. But I heard someone say that we have a lot less time in a day than we think but a lot more than a week, we have a lot less time in a week than we think a lot more in a month, a lot less than we do in a year, and so on and so forth. And that's really interesting. You know, I don't know how much I 100% agree with that. But, but I think we put too much on ourselves in the immediate moment, we'll realize what we really could accomplish if we recognize that the time can be stretched out. And we can leverage the time and a healthy way. I think that one of the simplest rules is the Pomodoro Technique, or block scheduling, and you put those very helpful for people that haven't heard of the Pomodoro. It's it's basically 2520 to 25 minute increments of focus time on a particular subject or task. And then you take a one minute to five minute break, and then you jump back in, I find that that can be really effective. And I kind of naturally operate that way. But what often people like me struggle with is actually taking a break.

Stephanie Olson: 36:45

Yes, yes, exactly.

Kyle Gillette: 36:48

We just go freaking go. I mean, my, my kids and wife went to Mesa, Arizona for some family time with all the family kind of congregated there. And then I didn't go on a couple other family members then and we just worked. But because nobody was home, I would get up, I get up at 530. And I do my normal routine eat breakfast, and I start working at 630. And I finish at 630 Oh my gosh. And it was no big deal. Because there was no kid

Stephanie Olson: 37:15

no responsibilities other than that, right?

Kyle Gillette: 37:19

What's unfortunate is some people do that, despite having those other responsibilities. And that's a problem, right? That's something that if you're like that at times, I'm not here to beat you up. But if you're like that at times for the listeners, then you know, you got to check that and that's predicting that's a part of predicting your time, you know, if you've got this this, if you work 60 7080 hours in a week, you know, how is that impacting the who in your life? And that's a big question, because what's most important right now? Yes, we know we need to grow our businesses, yes, they need to be successful all that, but at what cost is the other question. And that brings us back around to accountability again, because accountability is ultimately about the who, it's not really about the what it's about the who. And that's why you bring people into accountability. It's three of the parts of the equation. It's passive, active, and self, those are three different pieces that are related to people structures is the only piece that's related to things. So you got to get the WHO part correct. But I think one of the an easier way to predict what's possible, I'd love that you said it that way I really appreciate that is is taking the idea of the of the 40 hour workweek or 50 Hour Workweek, let's say 50. And in that 50 is a giant, massive whirlwind of things that you're getting done. There's 80% of it, that you're just going to get done. And it's just going to happen, whether you try it or not, it's just gonna frickin happen. It's just right past this, you're gonna do cause you're gonna make, but there's this 20% that also needs to get happened, but it's the most important 20% So to predict your time better, you got to pull out that 20% and look at it and go, Okay, what do you want me to accomplish in this 20% time? And that's a great topic to have in those 30 minute Monday meetings or whatever, weapon. But what is that 20% and 20% of a 50 hours a week is 10 hours. So do you have 10 hours to dedicate to that 20% If not, start with five start with 5% of your time to dedicate to that stuff that work. And that that will help you to predict what's possible. And the beauty of this is if you this is a whole nother layer of things here. But if you can measure that, if you can go okay, this is what I want to accomplish. This is the result of accomplishing it and then track specifically how you're going about making that happen with data. Then you can figure out you can basically create yourself a system and a process which then makes what you're doing predictable. I love because yeah, because you've created such a good system of if I make 10 phone calls a week to pass clients, I get three referrals. So make those freaking calls you're gonna get through, right? Like post to social media 20 times, it's a fat waste of time. So quick polls and social media. Right, you're able to measure your results. And it's all depending on the business. But the key is that you document it, which creates a system, which makes what you're doing more predictable. And then eventually, that becomes so predictable, you plug it back into the whirlwind and pull out another 20%. And focus on that, and you repeat, and then what you do becomes extremely predictable, and almost turnkey. So you just give somebody else the keys to do the work that you already know exactly how to do. And they're like, Okay, cool.

Stephanie Olson: 40:41

Yeah, so, oh, that's fantastic. That's awesome. You know, I think one of the things that has been very challenging for people, especially since COVID, so many people are working from home. And, and we actually have been working from home since COVID. And then we just found out that the building that we are inhabiting is, has been sold, and they're downsizing. So we are going to be working from home, which is actually a great thing. But one of the biggest challenges I think working from home, especially if you don't have a dedicated space to work in, is shutting that computer. And that goes back to the who, and you know, spending time allowing work to get in the way from your family or from, you know, from your friends and or whatever it may be. But the ability to say, I'm done, and put those boundaries in place. What What advice would you give people who just really struggle with boundaries, with work and themselves?

Kyle Gillette: 41:59

Sure. Okay, this one, some people won't do this, and they won't be able to but but it's a huge deal. When I went for me, for me, it was a huge deal. So about two years into the business, my laptop became just didn't work for what I wanted to do. It made it difficult for me to function at the level I wanted to in my business. And so I had it, it was a decision point for me it was do I buy another new laptop from from Apple? Because I'm not in that infrastructure?

Stephanie Olson: 42:28

Thank you. Okay, go ahead. I like even more now. Okay, got

Kyle Gillette: 42:34

that. Really, they can be really expensive, but they last for a long time. I still have I have one that my wife uses. Now. That's I think from 2017. And it's fine. You know, it's not I couldn't run my business to it, but it's fine. Anyway. How did you do I want a laptop, you know, some MacBook Pro or whatever? Or if you're, if you're a PC person, some high end Dell or whatever? Or am I gonna go with a desktop? And I chose to go with a Mac Mini desktop. And this isn't a This isn't an Apple ad by any means. But

Stephanie Olson: 43:01

it although, okay, if it were

Kyle Gillette: 43:04

to change things big time, because when I'm done working, I can't take my computer with me. I do. Yes, I have a phone. Yes, I have a tablet. So yes, I can still access it. And I do. But having a desktop made a big difference. So if that doesn't fit you, that's fine. But for those of you that, if you're willing to switch to a desktop, first of all, they perform way better. But that made a big difference for me. And then secondly, if you do have a dedicated space, close the door Yeah, when you're done close the door, very simple thing. I don't have to close the door anymore. I've disciplined myself enough but I needed to for a while I got into the habit. And now I'm in the habit throughout the closed door. But with all the other pieces turn off the freakin light in your office too. Because it's better for your home doesn't draw you in, didn't magnet that's turn off, turn off the lights, close the door. The party's over, you're done working. Pick a specific time that this is the upper limit of when you work and pick a specific time of the when you start working to and stop just don't work anymore. Don't check. The other thing is people. I have clients that get email alerts while I'm talking to them. And I'm like, do you really need an email alert? That you every every business owner is addicted to email so there's no need? Exactly. Why do we need an alert turned on stupid and turn them off on your phone? Turn off the badges for your emails, because we all know that most people have like 10,000 unread emails. Yeah, turn off the stinking badge. Yeah, so you don't see it. So you control. When you look at emails and I struggle with this. I don't. I don't have alerts but man, I'm addicted to my email. So I don't have this one figured out by any means but that's good. You have to cap your day and you have to create a audition for your day two. So those two pieces are really important. And take breaks, you know, I have something that I described in my book called The magic of transitions. And it's the idea that when you and I are done with this conversation, or whoever's listening when they're done listening, that that moment is a transition moment. And in that moment, when I stand up for my desk to leave, I try to leave. Yeah, often, after something finishes, I try to just go out my door, and go downstairs, grab a drink, or whatever. Yeah, not alcohol.

Stephanie Olson: 45:33

Yeah. No, not not promoting drinking during the day, like COVID did, right.

Kyle Gillette: 45:41

But in that transition, there's three things you can do one, you could just move on and let your brain go where it goes, you could pull out your phone, whatever you want to do. That's one option. A second option is to shut your mind down, slow it down, and listen and go, what what, what do I need to listen to right now? What do I need? What's my body telling me? What is the last thing that just happened telling me? What's what's going on? Is there something I need to reflect on and spend? We're talking 30 seconds, we're not talking about meditation for 10 minutes here talking time it takes you from to go from your office to your toilet. Because often that's what we do in our transitions. We go from our office to our toilet, or from our office to our car. Those are wonderful transition moments. Right? Right. The third option is to again, listen, but instead of to your body, or think about what just happened in the conversation is to listen to what God has to say, or to what the energy has to say to you. I don't see things that way, but some people do. So that's going to be something that people can listen to. And I call that the magic of transition, because it helps this thing up here. Yeah, reset, and get to a better place. Because I'm hard wired. I'm wired for a lot of energy. Yeah. And sometimes I need to slow down.

Stephanie Olson: 46:53

Right. So Right. And it's okay to step away and take a nap if you need to, or whatever it may be. Those are good things. Yeah, yeah, I do have to have a laptop for my work because I, we are such a mobile organization. But one of the things that I've learned to do, and this is kind of a new thing is, since I've been officing, since we got kicked out of our office in a lovely, wonderful way, actually. But since I did that, I actually took over my oldest daughter, she's 21, she lives in New York, and I took over her bedroom, and turned it into my master office. She doesn't know that yet. But I just leave the computers in here. And so unless I'm leaving for work, if I'm going downstairs, and if I'm just doing something for me, I don't have I don't even take the computers with me. So and that's a new thing, because I used to carry it literally everywhere. So

Kyle Gillette: 47:53

it's a badge. It's like a It's a pride thing. And I don't mean honestly, I mean pride in the negative way. I just mean, we're really proud of running our business, and we're business people and we're doing our frickin thing.

Stephanie Olson: 48:04

Computer, and I have to be on all the time. You know, it's like, you know, I am so in, the work never stops. And I think that's the thing we need to remind ourselves, it's going to be there tomorrow. And I always tell my staff, we are doing some important work. We do prevention, education, on sex trafficking, social media, safety, relationships, and we go into the schools, but I always tell my staff, we are not brain surgeons. And so no one's dying on the table. If you mess up. It's okay. You know, there's an if you don't get it done today, no one's dying on the table. It's okay. So I think those are just things that are not always easy to remember. But so important, so important. I just love this. So tell me, what does it look like to get coached? By Kyle, what do you coach people individually? Do you coach businesses? What does that look like?

Kyle Gillette: 49:09

My primary clients are business owners. And my work with them is growing their business with less stress. That's ultimately what I'm doing. Who doesn't? With I'm sorry,

Stephanie Olson: 49:23

who doesn't want that? Exactly.

Kyle Gillette: 49:25

I want that. For sure, yeah. So that's the primary target is to grow my clients business with less stress. And the way that I do that is yes, it's group coaching. And it's one to one primarily one to one but I'm launching a group coaching on the second of March actually launching a group coaching seven people walk in through a four month program. And in that program, we look at goals we look at what what is the vision that you have for your business? What's your org chart look like? A lot of people don't recognize the value of an org chart. Especially the small businesses that are you know, Mike Row size to three people, because most people want to grow their business. And if you develop an org chart, that's the prediction of the future of your business. So let's say there's seven in the ultimate version of your business. And then you describe what each role is going to be. And then you figure out using that predictable system you were talking about before. And I teach people how to do that in the program. But then you can plug in that info into all those job scorecards, but they're a version of a job description. You plug that all in, and then when you go to hire that role, you bring in Suzy and you say, hey, Susie, you're going to be the sales are your accountant executive. And this is how you do the job. Because I've been doing it for four years on my own. This is how you do it. And if you find any way to improve it, awesome, let's improve it, but follow this process to start. And then so now you have predictable processes. I teach people how to do a hiring. I call it sage hiring. And it's a very specific way that I walk people through hiring when I'm helping organizations with their hiring. And one of the last pieces is a review. We need to look at our systems, what's working, what's not working and make sure that they're in consistently improving. Because just because you've got it dialed in for this season doesn't mean when the next quarter comes in the next year comes that there's not going to be some adjustments needed because the marketplace is constantly changing. Yes. Right. So there's, there's ways I just love your word. I think that's great. But there's ways to create predictability in your business, you can use

Stephanie Olson: 51:29

it. Go ahead and trademark it. I don't care.

Kyle Gillette: 51:35

I think there is a there's I think there's a tool called predictable success, I think. But I think it's anyway.

Stephanie Olson: 51:42

Okay, so don't trademark it. But you can use it freely, you can use that. So tell us about your book.

Kyle Gillette: 51:49

Yeah, so it's called the sage leader. And it's all about helping people grab a hold of this, the mindsets and habits so they can be less stressed, more organized and have more freedom in their business in their life. And the book walks you through it sounds like a lot. It's not because most of us have at least half of these down. But there's 20 habits and 20 mindset. So I walk you through those habits and mindsets to help you become a sage leader. And the and the thing is that if you think I gotta I gotta adopt 40 habits and mindsets total? No, no, you look at the ones that you're already really good at. And you lean into those. And then you go, Oh, I'm not great at this mindset or this habit. So I'm going to find other people in my organization or the future organization and let them be empowered to do those things, because they're good at them too. So you basically deploy all those mindsets and habits within your business, but it's through the whole team back to the who again. So I teach people that the sage process, I teach people how to deploy it into their business. And it's, you know, you could deploy it into your life for

Stephanie Olson: 52:51

sure as well. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. I just love what you're doing, you are clearly doing great work. And I love how, you know, God took you from this place, were really teaching you all of the elements that you needed to know, to be able to help other people grow as leaders grow their organizations and just grow in life. So that's fabulous. Great.

Kyle Gillette: 53:19

Thank you, I had this wonderful opportunity at the HR job where they wanted me to create systems and to help them get the right people in the door and help them with communication. And so I basically had 30 hours a week that I worked and about five or so if not more sometimes a week, I got to basically study. And so not only did I have those nine years of mentoring, once I got into that HR job, I studied for five to 10 hours a week, and on my bookshelf, which nobody can see. But I've got probably 15 books that are that are like just, I basically created Cliff Notes versions of them myself. And that has turned into all these programs and the coaching that I'm doing. And if I hadn't had that time, I mean, I'm so fortunate to have had that time and I was paid to study. That's the ultimate college.

Stephanie Olson: 54:11

That really that is fantastic. It's like getting paid to work out those two things paid to study paid to workout. Those are two good things. Yeah. Which neither one is true for me. But I would love to have those opportunities. So how can people find you?

Kyle Gillette: 54:28

Sure, yeah, we'll simply go to Sage mindset.com Sage mindset.com That's the best way to reach me. There's a way to connect with me for a free discovery call. I love conversing with people networking. If if you network with me, you're going to find a connection with someone else. I guarantee it. It's just how I'd love to do that. And maybe even we could start working together. So

Stephanie Olson: 54:48

I love that I think that's great. I'm gonna give you a call because I think I just in this in this conversation I have learned so much. It's just great. stuff. So definitely worth worth looking up. So final question, what is resilience mean to you?

Kyle Gillette: 55:08

resilient? You know, I was looking at your word. And if you look at the word, it's again, silent, it's really silence. And I was thinking about that I'm like, What is What does that even mean? And I think resilience. Sometimes if we're going to be resilient, we have to go into ourselves and listen and be quiet and hear what's what's going on inside of ourselves. Because the resilience comes from within, and I believe also from God. And, and in order to hear that you have to be very quiet. But it happens again and again and again. So that's why I think that word read silence or resilience is very much being quiet repeatedly to hear how can you be reenergized to go forward to push through to make progress? So that and second, the word progress is what comes to mind? It's not perfection. It's, it's it's process in progress. If you put those two together, it's good. It's good enough. We don't need perfection. It's not going to happen.

Stephanie Olson: 56:06

I love that. Kyle, this has been great. I've learned so much. I've loved talking to you. And I would love to have you on again. We'll maybe learn even more. That would be awesome. If you're willing. Yeah, I've got an app that I need to talk about still, too. So. App. Okay, what it is, and then next time we'll talk about that. Yes.

Kyle Gillette: 56:29

So the app is based on stage, of course. And it's what I'm having people do is when you when you think about sports, what's your favorite sport, Stephanie.

Stephanie Olson: 56:40

Um, okay, so my son plays soccer, and basketball. So pick either one of those, as long as he's playing, that's my favorite. Okay, so we'll go. Okay,

Kyle Gillette: 56:53

at the end of the, towards the end of the fourth quarter, if the score is 80 to 85, and your team is down 80 to 85. And, and there's no timeouts left and there's a minute left in the game, we know exactly what's going on, we know exactly what the team needs to do, they need to score at least six points to win this thing game without letting the other team score. If you at the end of the game, you look at the box score, and you see that somebody had this many rebounds, somebody else had this many points, etc, etc, you have a scoreboard, and you have a box score of what's going on with the person what's going on with the team. But we don't do that in our own leadership. We don't do that in our own self development. And so I've taken sage, and I've plugged it into an app. And what you do is every day you go in there and you document based on one habit or one mindset related to self awareness, one related to accountability on through the other two, and you document what's happened in a journal way with that particular habit, or that mindset. And you do it in however many words you want. It doesn't matter one word or 1000 words. And you're what you're doing is you're shifting mindsets, because you're looking at your day, you're reflecting on what happened. And then you score yourself on a one to five scale, it's, it's based on a one to five, but it's going to be some sort of a ranking like I did awesome. Today, our man was a crappy day, whatever, just remember ranking like that. And then you do it on all four behaviors. And at the end of you know, a week, a month, whatever, you're gonna see that you're improving. If you if you average it around a four, you improve 1% Every day in that particular category. And if that's that's, to me, that's the goal 1% improvement in each of those habits. If we get that improvement, then that's a beautiful thing. Additionally, you get on the leaderboards with the words that you how many words you type in the number of days that you've done it in a row, those types of things. And so there's this camaraderie. And there's this gamification that encourages people to take action. So and then I engage on the app as well with messages and whatnot. So

Stephanie Olson: 58:51

nice. Okay. And that is called SAGE out is that sage mindset app? Yeah, Sage mindset app. Okay. Well,

Kyle Gillette: 59:01

it's not. It's not quite out yet. It'll be out.

Stephanie Olson: 59:05

Very cool. All right. Well, we will for sure, have you back. I want to hear all about that. And I'm, I'm looking forward to checking out more of, of your work with sage mindset. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely. And thank you for listening to resilience in life and leadership. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening. Please share with anyone you think will benefit from this podcast.