1569 – Picking up Your Blindspots with Paul Aucoin

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:59with us right now paul o 'coin paul you are the author of the book bulletproof your mindset think like a business owner uh good we're in the right room all thinking alike there but you're an author speaker um and you are found as well as an advisor and entrepreneur yourself you're found on the web at paul o 'coin.com to our friend who's listening to our conversation just click around in the show notes and you'll get there. And we have a direct link, Paul, directly to your website. Paul, thank you so much for joining us. You're welcome. I'm excited to be here. Well, yes, it's great to have you.

1:33You know, I kind of intro'd you here, but I'd love to learn a little bit more from your perspective, like your impact in the world today. Yeah. Well, I'm a small business and entrepreneur coach is my main thing that I do. But I do it in a different way because I've been a business owner in my own business. I started my own business in the basement of my townhouse with me and my dog. And I grew it to$15 million in sales, 23 employees before I sold it at the end of 2015. And I've been doing some consulting since then. So my consulting, what I do is once a month, and I find that's plenty of time for an hour and a half conversation with the business owner.

2:23And I help them, again, think like a business owner and help them with their issues that they've got going on. And I was part of a peer advisory group for 12 years where every month for five hours, eight of us got together with a facilitator. and we shared business issues. So, you know, I've been working with like a trucking company, a cosmetics manufacturer, a bowling alley, a software company, fitness training. All of these people were in this room together. And it was amazing the kind of advice we were able to give to each other. It was a fantastic sharing. And so that is that allows me to work with any different almost any different type of business.

3:06Yeah, I bet. But and when you say, you know, obviously, so someone might say, well, I already am a business owner. I have a business. What's the difference between having a business and thinking like a business owner? Well, having a business is great. It means that you've got initiative and you've got you're willing to put yourself out there and take some risks because that is really how if you want to make big money, you start your own business, but it arrives with big risks. and so uh you can't possibly know how to do everything and and the thing that we found is the most successful people in those groups that we had were the people that were willing to take advice and so it's perfectly okay for you not to understand everything and and most business owners were also very much into the personal development books and reading and just getting whatever information you know coming into to to your show to listen to to all the different people and all the different advice going on.

4:06So they're the best ones are the ones that love to learn and to take it all in. And it's okay not to know everything. And that's where somebody who can help you pick up your blind spots. That's where I help. Yeah. And what blind spots do you see? Are there any common blind spots? Oh, yeah, I see this a lot. This, this, this and anything that comes to mind? Absolutely. It's often related to the personality style that the person is. So the really high energy person that started their own business, go, go, go, go. They're probably bad with details. They're bad with wanting to do the planning or setting in processes in place to help them not make that same mistake again.

4:55So there's that side of things. And then you'll have people like maybe on the counting side or the finance side. Those are those people that are really good with numbers. Well, they're not so good at the sales stuff. You know, they, they, they, so I'll, I'll just send it an email and then I'll get my clients. Well, that's not how it works. You know, you, and so those people have different types of issues. And it's often there's at least some relation to the style that a person has the natural style that you have. It's got strengths. It's going to have weaknesses. Yeah. And, and Paul, So explain a little bit about your background, like the businesses that you've been at the helm of and how that's kind of informed the work that you do today.

5:37So I was in construction sales. So I started my career as a sales engineer. I got my engineering degree and sales and engineering. They don't sound like they go together, but actually, it's a wonderful combination of if you don't want to be mired in the super technical details and you like people and you like to be out in front of people and so on. And so that was a good mix for me. And in the whole construction world, there's a lot of things going on, a lot of different styles of people, certainly contracts to negotiate, so many different people that you need to sell to. you need to sell to a contractor, to a plumber, and then you need to sell to a mechanical engineer, and you have to sell to an architect.

6:24So all of these, they require different approaches. And so certainly understanding that kind of thing, and then growing company from zero to 15 million and 23 people. When we got to seven or eight people, I figured, okay, hey, this is it, you know, we're at a good place. But then if you're doing a good job with your company, your clients want you to grow. They want you to do more. Come see me more often, you know, that's, and hey, you're great, I referred you to somebody else and suddenly you need more people and you just grow. And you grow because you have to grow. Yeah, you know, obviously mindset, Paul, is something that you talk quite a bit about, you know, it's kind of the focus of your book.

7:07What would be an example of maybe a business owner that like, I mean, I can think of, you know, folks, you know, clients that we're working with or work that we do. And, you know, sometimes we get maybe a little burnt out. Sometimes we feel, you know what? I think I just created a job for myself and I cannot escape. And I feel trapped, not trapped, but, you know, it's, you know, is this really what I signed up for, you know? And, you know, is there maybe a path that you can help lead people through to maybe think about their role with their work or, you know, how they can be truly who they need to be.

7:47And maybe not, maybe some additional roles that they've currently taken on because they feel that, well, that's just what I'm supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah. As when you're starting your business, the, the, sometimes the toughest part is to take on your first, first employee is one little thing, which is, you know, maybe you're going to get your accountant, get your account to handle your books for you. So that's a good, it's a little, they don't actually come to work with you, their subcontractor. So there's that, that's a first step that that's good. You've taken some stuff off your plate. The really big step is when you take on somebody full time and getting to that step and, you know, noticing the things that you're doing, oh, I don't like doing this.

8:35So So when you notice that you don't like doing something, pay attention and say, you know, I really don't like doing that. I wonder if I could delegate that. And then something else comes out. Oh, I don't like doing this either. I wonder if I could delegate that. And once you get a group of things and you can hire that person, that is going to light a fire on you because now you need to pay them. You need to pay them every week, every two weeks. And you so that's that. And it's OK to not like doing things, to not be good at things. the typical entrepreneur you ask them they're going to say I can do anything I can do QuickBooks I can do I can read legal documents and contract documents and I can sell I can do all these things and the reality is is you're just not naturally good at everything you aren't and other people are going to do a better job and they're going to enjoy it so if you can if you can get that into somebody else's hands that's going to it's just going to help you to get to the next place and you're going to be happier because you're not doing that stuff that you don't like Yeah.

9:35And are there any things that trends that you're noticing among small business leaders today that like you find the conversations like, you know, I'm having way more conversations about X. I didn't used to have this many kind of conversations around this topic. Well, employees. Yeah. And there's always been conversations about employees, but now it's the employee that certainly very hard to get and seemingly hard to motivate or a little bit hard to understand. So there's that. And so that is a challenge in itself, but it's, you know, it's still the same as it's always been, is that if you make an effort to provide some training for them, to take responsibility to train the people that come to work for you in any small way, to take an interest in their future, that if, you know, you say, listen, hey, I know you're not necessarily going to work here forever, but you know what?

10:44I want you to really like working here and I want to help you to improve your skills, make you more marketable in your future. And let me show you some of the things that I think are really important. So, for instance, I think you need to learn how to get to know people a little bit better. I think you should start going to the local chamber of commerce, for instance. Get out there, put yourself out there and see what happens. So taking a real interest in those employees is important. And one of the things that I do want to mention is in my book, I came up with this acronym over years. And that situation that you just talked about, about employees, what kind of problem are you having?

11:34so when you notice you're getting frustrated or upset or angry and stuff instead of blaming which is kind of oh you know these kids these days or you know these young people these days they just don't get a blah blah blah you know they they don't want to work uh these these types of things where you blame and the reason you blame is you're trying to really take yourself you want to get off the hook and say it's not my problem it's not my fault it's their fault but what ends up happening is those two things always go together. And this was one of the things I learned, which kind of startled me a little bit, is that blame and anger or frustration, any of those negative things, they always go together.

12:16They always go together. In fact, if you stop blaming, it would be almost impossible for you to get upset. You could almost not get angry if you never blamed. So it took me a little while for either run a whole bunch of situations through my head to see how that was the case. So that was one thing. The next thing that happens when you blame that is also not what you think is you actually give control of the problem to the other person. So super simple example, somebody cuts you off in a car, you're driving. Okay, So what do you do? You can get upset. So if you get upset, angry, this person speeds away.

12:59They're not upset. You haven't affected their day. They're gone. You're angry. I always imagine them. I, what I do, I make a sound effect. I try to imagine like, they're just completely oblivious in most cases, unless they, you know, flip you off or whatever. Like chances are like, cause I listen, I've made dumb mistakes on the road. I try not to, I try to be a very attentive. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off in your story. No, no, no, it's absolutely. You just started describing something like, yeah, that, that used to really bug me. And then now I just, I don't, I used to assume some degree of malice today.

13:41Yes. I try to assume, you know, it's like in the South here in the United States, there's a phrase and I think a lot of people know exactly where I'm going with this. bless their heart bless their heart yes yes palm springs we have a similar expression yes bless their heart and you know there could be somebody uh you know your grandmother could be there or you're be driving that car yeah yeah it's possible yes so those are the kinds of things that that help you to if you can find a way to not blame if you can if you can say i if I can imagine that this person has good intent. So grandma has good intent.

14:23Grandma is just trying to get to this one appointment she goes to once a week. And, you know, she's just got to get there. She's going to move over into your lane and you're, you know, so that example of when you get upset. So you say, you know what, I'm not going to let this person affect my attitude. I'm not going to get frustrated. I'm not going to get angry. Because if that happens, then you've won that interaction. So for me, I'm a super competitive guy. I was like, okay, if I get angry, they win, I lose. So whenever I thought about getting upset or angry, I was like, oh, hang on a second.

14:58I'm going to lose this. I'm the loser. Don't be the loser. Try to take control of the situation, turn it around. And so that's the beginning of the acronym, which is ABC. And A is for anger. D is for blame. Those two things always go together. And then the C is take control. So figuring out how to take control, that's the next step. That's recognizing that you're going there and stopping yourself and saying, don't let yourself go there. And Paul, so I'm on your website right now. Can you describe like how you work with people, like how you coach, consult? What does that look like? Someone that might be maybe they did a search on you.

15:44They're listening to this conversation right now. And sure. Like, OK, I like I like this guy. What does what is kind of what are those next steps look like? So next steps on my website, there's a calendar. And if you click on so there's there's a few choices there. There's a couple of free meetings. So the first meeting is free. and actually I guarantee any meeting that I have from then on if you don't feel like you got value you don't you don't pay and so that's uh that's something that I've always done because I I want to give value and I work really hard to give value and I and the reason the first session is free is because uh I need to get to know you first and to understand your business and and where you're at and see if maybe there's there's a good fit so there I also do some webinars seminars but it's all available through the website.

16:40And my, I think my email is on in the show notes. So somebody could email me as well if they want to get in touch. Yeah. Yeah. Paul, this is great. And again, I want to mention your book to bulletproof your mindset. Think like a business owner. It's available everywhere. It's both in, you know, digital and as well, audio book. Thank Thank you for that. What is the transformation that you would expect? You know, someone who's already a business owner, they consider themselves a business leader. What would you imagine the transformation that they would experience? The most successful business owners are the ones that take 100 % responsibility for everything.

17:24They realize the buck stops with them. And, you know, that means their employee did something. if their supplier messed up, if, you know, if their, their partner messed up, it comes down to them, they ultimately take responsibility. And the way that the way that you can get to that point, which is which can be difficult, is because you're going to hit these plateaus as you grow your business. And when you're hitting these plateaus, and you get frustrated, that's going to be normal. Having the mindset that this is normal. And now how do I break through this? What is it that I'm upset with? What am I frustrated with?

18:03How can I take this and take good intent and take control of the situation? Having that mindset going in, your success rate is just going to get so much better as opposed to, you know, saying there's no way I can get past this point. There's, you know, there's no solution for this. And there's always, there's always something that can be done. Yeah. Awesome. Paul O 'Coin. Your website is paulocoin.com. That's A-U-C-O-I-N. Your book is Bulletproof Your Mindset. Think like a business owner. Take responsibility and take control of your life. Again, Paul, it's been great having you. Thank you so much for joining us.

18:48Awesome, Josh. Really appreciate it.

18:56thanks for listening to the thoughtful entrepreneur show if you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program please visit upmyinfluence.com slash guest if you're a listener i'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group. Just search for The Thoughtful Entrepreneur in Facebook. I'd love even if you just stopped by to say hi. I'd love to meet you. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day.

19:41Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful entrepreneurs. Hit subscribe so that tomorrow morning, that's right, seven days a week, you are going to be inspired and motivated to succeed. I promise to bring positivity and inspiration to you for around 15 minutes each day. Thanks for listening and thank you for being a part of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Movement.