Change Your Mindset, Grow Your Business With Fyfe Barraclough

Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Phil Risher. And on today's episode, we're going to be discussing how to solve the hidden barrier to your business growth through shifting your mindset. Thanks so much for joining us today, Fife.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, for sure. So Fife Barraclou is an entrepreneur dedicated to helping business owners break through mental roadblocks and reach their highest potential. Drawing on his own success as a former painting franchise owner and co owner of a furnace and duckling business, Fife brings firsthand industry insight to his coaching. He understands the pressure of running a service based business and more importantly, how to rise above it. Through his company, Fife delivers personalized coaching and powerful team training that equip home service professionals with the mindset tools to manage stress, lead with clarity and thrive under pressure. Thanks so much for joining us today. Fife. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got into this? I know I mentioned about the painting contractor, the duct cleaning and H Vac, but what would that look like and how'd you get to this point?

So that was kind of my start in my entrepreneurial journey was the painting business. And coming out of that, my dad was semi retiring getting into coaching. And I had always enjoyed that part of working with my painters, building that side of the business. And like that side of building the business was coaching and training. And he pointed me into the direction of trying out some coaching, going through a coaching certification. And that was probably about 10 years ago, like a decade ago. Started to chip away at the coaching side of things. And in between all that, started the H Vac business, worked in a startup doing marketing and business coaching for physios. So I've always worked in that small business space. But one of the kind of key things that of flipped the switch for me and pulled me into coaching full time was I went through a mental fitness coaching program. And at the time I was super burnt out. There's a lot of changes with COVID in the business I was working in and then our business navigating all those changes, hiring a new general manager. So it was just like a lot of chaos. And it really helped me step back, get more grounded, be more focused. Helped me a lot in a very short amount of time. And I was like, wow, that was really cool. I feel like, like I would love to give that to other people. Um, and that's become a huge toolkit for me in working with the clients and, and I've really loved bringing that into the coaching and, and working with home services. Cause there's just not. I don't see any of that right now. So it's been a lot of fun.

Yeah. I think a lot of times as business owners, specifically when it comes to the trades, like we get so sucked into the business. It's like customers, technicians, 24 7, almost having to be on and in the business and. And when you can step outside of it through some type of coaching program or health journey or whatever, you're sitting outside of your business and you get a lot more clarity of what you need to do. Opposed to the day to day minutia which it sounds like you kind of had that epiphany by stepping away and going through this process.

Yeah. And what was interesting was I was able to like the programming and some of the training with mental fitness gives you some of that space without taking a holiday or a vacation. And I've worked with a lot of guys that are super overwhelmed. They don't really know they're burnt out, but they're burnt out and running on adrenaline. Fuel tank is pretty much empty, but they're just getting by and it gives you that space to make changes without actually taking a bunch of time off from the business.

Yeah. So I want to dive into that because people listening to this, they may have never taken a real vacation or they're feeling that way. How would you coach them or what would you ask them or walk them through to help them get out of that? Because you can feel like you're in it, but you don't know how to get out of it. It's a very common thing.

So a big part of it is the root level function of mindfulness and meditation. The change to it is how do you do that on a micro scale on a daily basis, multiple times throughout the day. And that was something that I found was missing because I had done some mindfulness and meditation and a lot of my clients have done that in the past. But they do that when they're not super busy and then they get super busy. And that's one of the first things that falls off. And that's one of the things that helps keep you grounded when it's chaotic. And having these small practices that you're doing three or four times a day creates these little mini moments of stepping back, slowing your brain down, shifting your actual brain activity from one part of your brain that's a little bit more adrenaline and negative emotions and that lizard brain to being able to think a little bit more strategically and slow down.

Okay, so if I'm hearing you right, it's like I'm stuck on the hamster wheel of just grinding 24 7. I can't take any time off. So what we, what you would recommend people do is three or four times a day, take five minutes and maybe run through some type of like mantra or something in their head or something like, okay, take a step back and think through these things. Silence, phone on, do not disturb and just take a step back. And you could just break that today or tomorrow.

Yeah. So there's kind of three key components to mental fitness. One is building your self command muscle. So that ability to slow your brain down to recognize that you actually are in that fight or flight mode and that you actually need to take a step back. Just that awareness is really hard in the first place. So, so you need to have the awareness and then you build that muscle of redirecting your focus to where you want it to be focused on. And over time you build up more commands so that you can catch it faster, you can course correct faster. And then another really, really important piece to all this, which we'll probably get into more with how we get in our own way, is seeing those patterns of self sabotage. And prior to going through the mental fitness coaching, I would often end up coaching somebody in a state of avoidance or perfectionism. But it was so ingrained we weren't addressing the root issue that was creating some of that. And we'd end up coaching in a form of self sabotage. But having that language and that structure for both the coachee and me as a coach allows us to step back and see these different patterns and address them. And a lot of the patterns are the thing that are creating that overwhelm or that state of chaos in the business or just the internal feelings of chaos as we move through it. So until you have that awareness of those kind of bigger root patterns at play, just shifting in the moment, those five minute things do a little bit and it helps. But like until you see those patterns and address that at a bigger level, you're still kind of going to get sucked into that.

Yeah, makes sense. What was the third one there you said? So self command muscle then seeing the self sabotage and fixing it.

Yeah. So that awareness that we're in that state, which is great. And then what do you do? It's like, cool, I'm, I'm in that state, what do I do now? And there's a couple different strategies depending on the situation, whether that's conflict and you're working with somebody or you need more clarity on a big decision. There's a couple strategies that you can deploy that help you navigate that same challenging situation from a different kind of mental state where you're a lot calmer and have access to more wisdom and strategy. Essentially.

Yeah. Okay, so I want to unpack the self sabotage stuff, dive into that. I want to try to use this as like a real situation that someone can be listening to. So let's say you're like 1 to 10 million revenue. Let's say you're like, let's say you're like 1 to 3 million. And usually at the 1 to 3 million mark, you're kind of the chief person, maybe the best salesperson, maybe the operator. You might still be running some of the bigger demand things, but you just feel like you're on this path. And the self sabotage that, that we see a lot and we can talk about these, but like, you know, you should hire a salesperson, you know you should do this, but you don't. And you're kind of like on this revolving wheel of sabotage that you can't fix. So can you take that lens and kind of talk me through? Like, I'm sure there's a bunch of different ways you can self sabotage or the different patterns, but like what is someone like that they come to you like what do you help them? Like how do you talk through that with them?

Yeah. So there's nine core ways that we self sabotage and these are like just archetypal ways. And that helps have a doorway into like which bucket do you fit into? A lot of what I see with business owners at that stage is they have a really hard time of letting go of control. They've spent and invested so much sweat, blood and tears into the business. They've gone through all the mistakes, they've learned so much. So they are an expert in everything. And to let go of control and have somebody step in that will make a lot of the same mistakes they did that might leave the business after a year or two and then they have to rehire. There's just a lot of fear and uncertainty that shows up. And that's when the saboteur, we call them saboteurs, these archetypal ways of self sabotage, that's when they rear their head.

Okay, so everything you just said, I know for a fact that everyone is experiencing those things. So how do you coach them to overcome that control piece? And the thing they're going to come here, they're going to make all the same mistakes. They're going to probably leave in two years. You're going to get frustrated and then you're going to be back at the same point. How do you get over that?

Micro iterations. So there's a couple components to this. So one, just the acknowledgement that that control thing is a really driving function of how that person operates and everybody will have a top couple. I see a lot in business owners. So the controller is one that there's an anxiety based need to have control. And if we don't have control then we feel anxious, out of control. And that's like an internal state that shows up for some people. The avoider is quite strong and that shows up a lot in avoiding confrontation. So maybe you have an employee that's not delivering, but you're not confronting them, addressing that issue. They stay on too long and that creates a lot of problems in your business. So each of these things are actually built on a subverted strength. So the controller, they are somebody that likes to be in charge. That CEO mindset, they like to call the shots. But as we get more overwhelmed, more in fear, more in uncertainty, we tighten our control. And, and one just that awareness can be huge because sometimes we can't see it for what it is and the impacts that that has. And really recognizing the price that we're paying for staying in that state and that awareness of that price can sometimes be the thing that just unlocks it because now we have a voice to it and be like, oh, that's what's happening. How do we want to handle this differently? Um, if you're still having a hard time, it's, it's taking an approach of what's the next smallest step and testing your hypothesis. And for somebody who's a controller or a stickler, like they really want control, they want things done perfectly. And there's often underlying assumptions in that I'm the only person that can do this. Other people are not qualified. They're going to screw things. There's these assumptions that we've built the foundation of that everything's kind of happening on top of. So we need to break those assumptions. So you kind of test them by taking little micro steps to prove them wrong and create evidence to the contrary. And that's hard to do, but you just slowly chip away at it and be like, oh, I've let go of this one thing, it actually went really well and I have all this space to do something else. But until you actually take that action, you can't prove that assumption false. And then we just stay stuck in it. So you have to. Often accountability is A huge part of this. So having a conversation like this where we call it out and then next week we're going to chat and be like, did you do the thing? People are like, got to do it. I'm paying good money to help me through this thing. So just that level of accountability, calling it out, the awareness, sometimes that's enough and sometimes it just, it takes a bit of time. Too often we expect instant results. It's like this is a process. This is something that's going to take time to unwire some of those patterns in our head.

Yeah, I think the accountability piece is so huge because it's like people kind of know I should be doing this or this is why. But then there's no one that's meeting with them saying like, hey dude, did you do this? And paying money on top of that to help someone coach you through it. There's that level to it. Another piece is like, there's these huge businesses that are out here and just because you can't solve this problem in your business doesn't mean that it doesn't work and that no one is. There's no CSR that can answer the phone just like me. There's no salesperson that can close like me. It's like there's literally a hundred million dollar businesses of whatever you do that have figured this out. So there are solutions out there. I do want to ask you, is there like a quiz or something that people can take to figure out like what those things are that they have?

Yep. Yeah, I can send it to you after. Takes about three or four minutes and it's through the organization. I got certified. Takes, yeah, three or four minutes to list out your top ones. And there's a really great description of each of them and kind of highlight some of the hidden parts that we maybe don't acknowledge because often we know, oh, I'm a perfectionist, but we don't see some of the hidden impacts that that can have and where that shows up in the business too.

Yeah, for sure. I'm sure they could reach out to you and get that 100%. The other one I want to talk about is like work life balance. Because I think people, you know, they're in this, this grind of things and one, they know that they should probably be replacing themselves, but they're the control freak. But then there's the other layer to it which is like, you know, I have to be working 60 hours a week or whatever those mindset things are. Can you talk a little about that? Because I Feel like it kind of goes hand in hand with the control piece of. And the time and work life balance.

So I've had a lot of conversations with people around the word balance, and I don't know if we talked about that last time.

Yeah, we did.

But balance to me is alignment with your values and your priorities. So if you're clear on those things and you're working in alignment with that, you will probably feel balance. But if you're out of alignment, so that you're saying that I want to spend more time at home, and that's not happening. That's where we start to feel out of balance. And I think there's such a. I mean, there's a cultural part of this where grind work hard. We just hear that from a lot of angles. But I think part of it too, is it's just a default mode. It's what got us to this stage that we're at in the business. It's what created the success, is that initial pushing, working hard, and then we reach this stage where it's like, that's all we know. That's the only tool we have in the tool belt. And it takes a lot of, again, kind of testing a different way to step back. But when you're redlining, you're in burnout. It's just a default mode. We're not thinking as strategically to be able to step back and make some of those changes. And again, sometimes it takes an outside voice. Sometimes it takes a partner, like a spouse, being like, something's not working, we need to change, or a health scare. Often there's some kind of activating thing that initiates, like, I need to make a clear change because this is not sustainable. And again, it takes time to unwind some of that and see it and get the right people in place to. To start to do that. So I don't know if there was more to the question. I didn't answer.

No, that was great. There's a good quote that's like, up into a million dollars, you're a hustler. And once you hit a million dollars, the hustler has to die and the leader has to be born. And you kind of hit it nail on the head that you have to change the way that you work. Because up until a million, you can just throw yourself your time at problems and solve them. But once you continue to scale, you have to work through people and processes in your business and build them out to actually scale. And a lot of times that 1 to 3, 1 to 5, you just burn out. Because you're just like in every single thing and you're not working through people, you're not asking who, you're asking how and trying to dive into all these problems.

And there's a couple of things that popped up for me as you were sharing. That one is the identity piece you talked about. The hustler has to die. We are very attached to our ego and the identity of what created the success in the first place. And I've heard it called mini deaths, where that ego, that part of you has to die and you have to process and let go of that identity. That is who you see yourself as in order to create this new leadership identity to be able to level up. And I don't think a lot of people recognize some of that internal game that comes with leadership and like leveling up through these different stages. So that's part of it is that awareness of the internal game. Where are you at? What's this next stage for you? What do you have to let go of? Both in terms of your responsibilities, but who you see yourself as. But the other side too is skilling up in that space of becoming a coach and becoming somebody who's asking questions and creating space for somebody rather than being the one that's answering all the questions. Because you might have a team to delegate to, but if you're still telling them everything that they need to do, you're still the bottleneck. So that's a lot of the work that I do is once we've seen some of these bottlenecks and these self sabotaging patterns is how do we start to work through people, Create more of a coach like mindset in how we approach conversations, how we move through challenges with people. And it's just a shift in leadership.

Yeah. One of the frameworks that helped me tremendously and even my team at that was like the. Basically the framework of sports, which is I was on the field, you know, I was the quarterback, I was the wide receiver, running the plays, catching the ball, throwing the balls. Then I had to step over to the sideline and be the coach where I couldn't be on the field anymore. And eventually I'm going to be up in the owner's box where I'm just owning it and I can't even be calling the plays or anything. And there's these three things like the technician, the manager, and then the entrepreneur. That's the shift that people have to do. But a lot of times they're the coach, but they want to go out and shoot the game winning shot. It's like, no, you can't. You're the coach, but you can't. It's easy in sports to draw that distinction, but it's hard in business to make those transitions.

And I think like we talked about some dad stuff last time. I think becoming a dad has actually been a helpful exercise because there is this other human that I can't control all the time that I'm trying to lead and give opportunity to. And in a lot of ways business is like that where you don't have that control and you need to let that go. And there's all these little micro things that happen as a parent where you're letting go of control and breathing life into a new human that I think we do in business too. It's like you need to set them free, watch them make mistakes, but have that wisdom of being able to know that that's part of the process.

Yeah, it's like your business is your baby, but then it needs to grow up and be a teenager and then needs to be an adult and needs to go through this life cycle. And you're almost doing it a disservice and yourself a disservice if you don't give it room to breathe and actually grow into a full business that's going to always rely on you. Basically they're going to be living at home in their parents basement for 30 years and just. And you're not going to have any, you know, productive human being.

Like very like helicopter parent is the family analogy. It's like there's a helicopter owner, right? Yeah, exactly. Very similar.

Yeah. I'm curious to get your thoughts on the chaos trail that a lot of times business owners leave behind. Because we have a lot of ideas swirling through our heads and there's this level to everything is working. But I operate the best when chaos is happening and I need to go create chaos. So that way I feel like I'm actually doing something and utilizing my skills instead of just like letting things work and run. Is this something that you. That you've come in contact with business owners that leave a trail of fire behind them and they're always creating chaos in their business opposed to just like fixing what needs to get fixed?

Yeah, I mean there's, there's some different layers to this and one of the first things that pops into my head I've talked with a lot of guys who have ADHD and sometimes diagnosed, sometimes undiagnosed, but that is actually a big theme is they don't really know how to operate. Not in chaos. They like to create it. And that's that default state thing that we were talking about before. So just again, it's an awareness piece. It's like, is that a theme in your business? Do you actually see it as a theme? Because you might not see it, but if you do, again, what do you do next? And I think what's really hard is again there's that shift of letting go and stepping back. Another thing that I've seen is that stage of as you step into these different parts of leadership, I think there's some fear of what do I do. There's a lack of clarity with I was the sales guy, I was in the field doing these things. And there's not a clear roadmap of this is how I'm going to spend my day and provide value. It's more disconnected. So it becomes a lot harder to let go because you're just like, I don't know what I would do to provide value. And it's just because you don't see it yet or you haven't built that skill of coaching and leading and working on the business. So there's just a learning process. Time to being able to see the value in no chaos. And it depends on the type of like business. There's some people where chaos means just a lot of growth really fast.

Exactly.

And I think there's again a cultural thing where people want that because it means growth. But at the end of the day I think most business owners want freedom. Exactly. And that should be the goal. So a lot of actually what I spend time on with people is what is your definition of success? And really, really having a clear picture of what that is. Because often it's not what they're building right now.

Yeah. And it's a mind shift. In my opinion that helped me a lot was the less the business relies on you, the more the business can grow because you're opening it up to a whole bunch of other people that can help grow this thing. Opposed to just one guy trying to will this thing to 10 million or $20 million. And I think there's a big shift there that has to happen. I want to get your thoughts like let's say someone's like 1, 2, 3 million dollars and they want to get to 10 million dollars. Are there any low hanging fruit that everyone needs to do this kind of thing in their business or their mindset or their daily thing? This is what I would recommend. Just a basic thing.

It's going to sound so simple. But are you exercising five hours a week? It's surprising to me because people are in a state of overwhelm and that's an indicator of a lot of different things. So there's a couple within that. But when you're in that one to three, you are. You have your hands on everything. There's still the bottlenecks. You're probably overwhelmed, you're probably almost burning out and redlining but you're so high performing that you don't see it or that you can navigate it just. And if you're not exercising five hours a week, that's a pretty good indication that your it's not a sustainable healthy thing and you're going to burn out and then things are going to suffer. So often that can be a huge keystone habit for guys and women too. I just mainly work with a lot of guys is can you install a good four to five hours a week of exercise, which kicks off better sleep, which kicks off better habits in general morning and evening routine, more mental clarity, less, less scattered during the day. So there's like a lot of downstream effects of something as simple as that and that's on like a personal side of things. Working one on one with a business owner is that. Or there's a whole host of other habits that'll help with that. But that seems to be a really big one. Mental fitness is obviously huge. I promote that because I just think that's absolutely critical and having a practice around that.

Yeah. What so mental fitness, what are some things like we talked about those like daily couple things. Is that like what you're referring to or is there other like journaling or other things that they could do.

So I take people through a practice of it's like a seven week program where it builds that foundational practice of seeing the self sabotage, building up that self command muscle, doing some of these other strategies. But even if you don't want to do that, do you have a mindfulness practice? Do you have a space to reflect? And ideally do you have some outside source of accountability? It's like three keys that anybody can build. So I would say exercise mental fitness and then on the business side it would be and this is just based on the last six months I've just had so many conversations with clients. Do you have really clear scorecards for each role that are hyper focused on KPIs, the outcomes for that role, roles and responsibilities that you're reviewing monthly, every other month and having clear one on ones with them about them and holding accountability to it. Again, it's one of those things that all of my clients knew that they should be doing it, but there was some internal block or resistance that got in the way of doing it. But it's huge for onboarding. It brings a lot more clarity when you bring somebody on. Those first three months are a lot more clear to them in terms of what does winning look like? It's better accountability. And that's something I see a lot is the owners have a hard time holding teams accountable because it's not clear with what you're holding accountability to. You need some kind of reference point. So the business side, it's like, are you doing weekly one on ones with a scorecard and like, yeah, mental fitness exercise and that. Like those would be three pretty big levers that if you, if you don't have any of those, like that would make a big difference for you pretty quick.

Yeah, the scorecards for me was a big unlock because when I started thinking myself as a coach, I'm like, okay, what do coaches do? They review game film with their players, they review their stats, they set goals for their stats, they help them with training, they help them with different people on the team. They do all this stuff as a coach that you have to get to that. And then what does a coach do? And just by shifting my mindset that now I'm a coach, I'm not a player anymore, it unlocked that for me to give me the space to be able to say, okay, this is what I need to be doing. And I think a lot of people miss that. Another thing that I will say, I started journaling this year and one of the questions on the journal thing is like, what will make today a great day? And it would be like on a Saturday, I would say, be very present with my wife and daughter. And then I would. I started to ask myself, well, how can I make this a reality? So like I would literally start turning off my phone for the whole day because I wanted to. This would make it a great day. Okay, do this or like walking 10,000 steps. I think that by people like writing down this stuff, there's some mind thing in my brain that's like, okay, I wrote it down like, this would make it a great day. So let me go do this. It's crazy as it seems, it's been very eye opening for me.

There's a lot of benefits with journaling. I've done it for a long time. It's great for self awareness. It's great to see some of those patterns. You Just go back and I'm talking about that thing again and again and again and again. It's like, maybe I should address that or maybe that's something I should go do because it's important to me. But also just a processing thing. That's where a lot of making sense of the stress and overwhelm and identity and who am I journaling through that? You can help process the challenges that you're facing in the heat of the moment, which allows you to address them more proactively with your team or client.

Yeah, well, five man, this has been great. I really appreciate your insight on things. Kind of pulling back the curtain a little bit and walking through people through like, hey, this is what I would recommend doing. I appreciate the transparency as well. Where should people go this. This quiz to get this thing or like learn more about you? What should they. What should they do?

LinkedIn's the best. I'm in the middle of brand website stuff right now, but LinkedIn, FifeBearClo and the Quiz I can share with you, but people can find that@positiveintelligence.com and that's the company I got licensed to and certified through for the mental fitness thing. But I can share it with you and we can just have it in the links descriptions and stuff like that.

Okay. Sweet, man. Well, it's been great getting to know you. I appreciate you having me on your podcast and I appreciate you and look forward to continuing relationship 100%.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, man.