Jack Jostes [00:00:00]:
What happens when an employee at your landscape company reaches the end of working with you? Is it some big scary thing where they're humiliated and it's terrifying and awful? Do they get fired? Do they quit? Some people might get fired or quit. And could it be normalized that people reach the end of working with you and it's not such a terrible thing. In today's interview, I talk with Monique Allen, who is the author of a book. She's got a new one coming out. She's been on the show before and she's been in the landscape industry for over 40 years, and she shares how she has normalized exiting her landscape company, and I believe this is why she has one of the highest Glass Door ratings of any landscape company I've seen, and I've audited and looked at over a thousand landscape companies. So in this interview, Monique shares how she has solved her recruiting and retention challenges, partly with a healthy mindset, but also an apprenticeship program. She has a special position at her company that's focused on onboarding, recruiting, and retaining employees.
Jack Jostes [00:01:10]:
And she talks about how yoga can help landscape professionals recover from injuries. I can't tell you how many clients of mine share with me that from years of working in the trades, their bodies beat up. And she's a yoga instructor and talks about how this can be really helpful for you. So it's a really great conversation and you've got to check it out.
Hey everyone, Jack Jostes here and welcome to The Landscapers Guide Podcast where we share sales, marketing and leadership inspiration for the snow and landscape industry. One of the things I love about the industry is getting to meet interesting people. And today I've got a really great guest who's been on the show a few times before and I wanted to let you know that while you listen to this, you could be eating beef jerky. We could send you a landscapers marketing toolbox that includes beef jerky and a bunch of awesome guides to help you grow your business.
Jack Jostes [00:02:17]:
So make sure you claim yours at landscapersguide.com/toolbox. See our show notes for a link and let's dive into this conversation with Monique Allen.
Jack Jostes [00:02:27]:
Hey everyone. Today I'm excited to have Monique Allen back on the podcast. She is the author of How to Stop Landscaping & Start Lifescaping. It's a really great book. She runs a landscape company out in Massachusetts and has also was on the show. So that was 2020. Right when we started the podcast, Monique was a guest and then she came back in 2021 with some amazing recruiting and retention strategies so I'm going to link to both of those in the show notes, so you should definitely check them out. And we're just kind of catching up, and I thought I'd press record and see what you're up to now and what's happening. So thanks for coming on the show.
Monique Allen [00:03:16]:
Thanks for having me. And I love it. The first thing I said when I saw your face is, look at us. We've both grown up so much. I just feel like you're right. It's hard to believe that it was four years ago, and so much has happened since COVID. So many things have changed, and it's just kind of mind boggling. It's hard to gauge time, gauging time, since COVID is a little weird. But, yeah, we've talked about some pretty cool things.
Jack Jostes [00:03:50]:
Yeah. So it's December 2023. While we're recording this, this might come out next year. It might be 2024 before this comes out. I'm curious. So when COVID happened, everything was disrupted and closed and so on. And I remember talking to you about wedding photographers who there were no weddings, and there were all sorts of industries where people lost their job, which was really devastating. And I think, as a country, we're still, in some ways, just starting to see the impact of that.
Jack Jostes [00:04:28]:
I feel like we're not anywhere near done. I think that's going to have decades of impact. Honestly, I think the impact of all that closure was significant, and it created some interesting opportunities, because for you then there were people who were like, ‘hey, I was burnt out on running my photography business anyhow, and I want to do gardening.’ And so you started a paid apprenticeship program where you took people who had no landscape or gardening experience and you paid them to go through an apprenticeship training. And I think the rough math was that about the same amount of those people stayed on long term as employees as when you just recruited people normally.
05:23: How Adapting to Industry challenges led to inclusive employment practices
Monique Allen [00:05:23]:
Yeah, it was born out of necessity. And also looking at the market and saying, what's going on in this market? And is there any way for us to benefit? We were seeing that there was such a downturn in young people, it seemed, coming into the industry. We learned a lot. We learned a lot about the difference between an apprenticeship and somebody just like, starting a new job. We learned a lot about physicality, like people's abilities to do things and kind of trying to move out of an ableist mind, like having this ableism, like, you just sort of think a certain thing about how people can or cannot work. I mean, you and I were just talking about yoga and how important that has been to our physicality. So I was learning that. I was learning things about direct commuting and people wearing uniforms who'd never worn a uniform before and sort of being a captive workforce where they've never been a captive workforce before.
Monique Allen [00:06:30]:
So it required an incredible amount of introspection to figure out why we do things in the industry the way we do them. Do we do these things in the industry because that's how it's always been done and that's how we were introduced to it. Or is it because it has to happen or could we think outside of the box? These people really helped me to think outside of the box. And I have one person who's still with me today, and her evolution within the company has really been amazing. And I never would have reached out to her before COVID.
Jack Jostes [00:07:15]:
I'm curious. You had somebody who came and eventually ended up doing sales. Is it that person by chance, or is it a different one?
Monique Allen [00:07:21]:
No, the person who. There's been a couple, and I have one who came out of public safety and who now is totally, completely our recruiting entity.
Jack Jostes [00:07:35]:
Oh, yeah.
Monique Allen [00:07:36]:
And it's amazing. It's amazing. And I had hired her, I want to say, just before COVID but it was the beginning of hiring outside of the industry because, as I said initially, it was born out of necessity. I could not find people. And so before COVID I couldn't find people. So I started the internship. Then COVID happened and there was a lot more available people. So we amped it.
Jack Jostes [00:08:09]:
And so now. We're. I don't know, the world now, it's just different. So what are you going to do this spring? This coming spring, are you going to continue with the internship and apprenticeship? So do you have an internship and an apprenticeship or are they the same?
Monique Allen [00:08:26]:
There's two. One of the internships is for students and that's a little bit more apprenticeship like, these kids are in the trade somewhere or other, maybe in a trade school. And it really is about giving them specific learning so that they can get credit for it.
Jack Jostes [00:08:50]:
Okay.
Monique Allen [00:08:51]:
The internships are. We either have student internships or what we call industry interns. The student interns are kids who need jobs in the summer. Right. It's a pretty low bar. The industry interns are people who are often leaving other careers and they want to try it on for size. They love to garden. They've been gardening in their yard forever.
09:17 How Monique Was Inspired to Start her Internship Program
Monique Allen [00:09:17]:
And they love nature and all that, but they have no idea if they can do it. So there was this fear around. Well, I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I really want to take a full time job. So it was like, how do we build part time programming? That was messy, but we finally landed on something really good, and then how do we build into our system a normalized way for people to exit? And internships were great for that because they were 90 days. And so at 90 days, we could say, gosh, we love you, we'd love you to stay. Or we could say, thanks for the 90 days. It was great.
Monique Allen [00:09:55]:
I hope you learned a lot. Bye bye, and not feel bad about it. A big part of this has been allowing people to try something on and then leave without it being this big, dramatic exit. So that ended up being a big part of it, too. Is normalizing separation.
Jack Jostes [00:10:18]:
Having an intern. A true internship requires a lot from the company.
Monique Allen [00:10:25]:
Yes.
Jack Jostes [00:10:26]:
Right. So it takes resources, and you have people who manage these interns. I know that you have a lot of resources put into it. Do you feel like? I know there are multiple reasons why you do it, but are you getting enough out of it in those 90 days? Is there reciprocal value?
Monique Allen [00:10:43]:
Yeah. So the low bar value. Right. Which is really not that low, is that I've got labor for 90 days, and it's cheap. Right. So we're always looking to push work forward and not have to pay through the nose for it. So there are no benefits. There are no perks.
Monique Allen [00:11:03]:
There's just nothing. They're literally coming, getting paid a relatively low wage, but a good wage and learning. And so the direct correlation is revenue and production, and that's really good. And then, of course, if the person is good, now we can invest in them more, bring them on and start to benefit them and so on. And after their 90 days, they can be fully benefited. Like, right away. They can matriculate as a full employee. The cost is that people can be a little deer in headlights, wide eyed, like, oh, my God, I had no idea.
Monique Allen [00:11:44]:
Right. They deal with fatigue. They deal with cold, they deal with heat. And literally, their bodies have never felt this before.
Jack Jostes [00:11:53]:
Right.
Monique Allen [00:11:54]:
And so you have to have a team that is willing to caretake a little bit, to be a little gentler, to be a little bit more attentive, and sometimes that goes great, and sometimes it doesn't go so great. Right. If it's a really good intern, it goes swimmingly. If the intern is really not cutting it, it can be really stressful, and you got to be ready for that. And as the employer you have to be ready to support your crew leads out there who are dealing with it.
Jack Jostes [00:12:25]:
Yeah.
Monique Allen [00:12:25]:
Right.
Jack Jostes [00:12:26]:
Glad that you mentioned that. And I think it's a key thing because it was a mistake I think I made once having an intern. Honestly, I don't even think I had any full time employees. And I brought on an intern, and I didn't have enough to give them. So I don't think it was the best thing. They did end up becoming, I think, one of my first employees, actually, though. But this was 14 years ago when I was figuring all this out the hard way, which is the only way, I don't know. There's a certain, like, you have to do it and be bad at things in order to figure out the right way of doing them. I think you
Monique Allen [00:13:14]:
And you can say to somebody, look at, I've never done this before. It seems like a really good idea. I've got this sort of really pie in the sky idea about it. But the only way it's going to work is if you communicate back to me and tell me if this is sucking.
Jack Jostes [00:13:29]:
Right.
Monique Allen [00:13:32]:
I really think that a great way to do this is to be able to do it with some humility, but also with some drive. Right. So if you bring humility to it, it solves a world of sins because it opens up lines of communication.
Jack Jostes [00:13:49]:
One of the things that I'm noticing is that I Googled you. I Googled, and I Googled Garden Continuum. That's your landscape company on Glassdoor. And have you looked at this, Monique?
Monique Allen [00:14:04]:
Not recently.
Jack Jostes [00:14:05]:
Okay. The good news is you have a 4.7 Glassdoor review average. And Glassdoor can be a place where people just post negative things, where they vent. Because part of me, like, whenever I'm hearing about these things, I'm like, well, what do the employees have to say about it? And I haven't gone into the weeds to read to know if they're from the interns or not. But you have a positive review average on Glassdoor.
Monique Allen [00:14:34]:
Cool.
Jack Jostes [00:14:34]:
It is cool. And it's related to. So on one of our interviews, you said that you see yourself as a gardener of people, and I loved that, and we talked about that. And people should go and hear you talk about that because there's a whole interview about it, and you have an employee experience manager, and this person is still on the website. So it's still a role that you have. And this has been the case. Now, I've known you for a few years now. So what is that? What role do they have in the internship?
15:13: Monique’s Proven 90 Day Onboarding Process for Improving Employee Retention
Monique Allen [00:15:13]:
Yeah. Okay. That role is first and foremost, it's recruiting and onboarding and then kind of ownership of all employees for the first 90 days of their employment. Beyond that, the employee experience manager is still connected to training, safety and employee experience umbrella. But the real critical time in developing an employee is in the recruiting of them, the onboarding of them, and then that orientation period, that is where almost everybody fails, right? So we hire the warm body with a pulse. We throw a uniform at them and throw them in a truck and say, have a great day, and then we never talk to them again. This is rampant in the industry and I felt it early on when I was young in the industry. I've certainly been guilty of all three of those things and not just once for a decade or more.
Monique Allen [00:16:29]:
Right. It was just how you did it. And I started to really listen to the feedback and people needed more attention. And COVID has absolutely made that. So workers are not going to stand for owner bullshit. Like they're just not going to do it anymore. And so the thing that's awesome about her is the vetting of the. We use Team Engine, which is awesome. I know You know, Team Engine.
Monique Allen [00:16:56]:
And so the vetting of the people that we hire. And then she is integral to the onboarding process. So onboarding is usually a two day process. And then the orientation period, which is 90 days, has a three step review process. So they have twelve KPIs, they have four that they go through each 30 day period. And then they know what they are. And then they have literally a sit down meeting with our employee experience manager after 30 days.
Monique Allen [00:17:30]:
This is an incredibly safe person that they don't have to see every day. And they can literally go in 30 days in and vent. They can say what's wrong, what's bad. They can also celebrate and talk about what's good. It's a really safe place. Then if they make it through the first 30 days and they get to the next 30 days at their 60 day orientation meeting, then they are basically meeting with the employee experience manager and the account manager. So like a direct manager of the division that they're working in. So now the bar is a little bit higher and you might get information about how you need to improve.
Monique Allen [00:18:09]:
Right. And it's a give and take, but you're really clear about where you stand at that 60 days and you're giving pointers that you are expected to improve upon in the next 30 days. Right. Because when we get to that next 30 days, you're going to sit down with me and I'm going to make a decision whether you're staying or you're going.
Jack Jostes [00:18:31]:
And do people know this? Do they know? Good.
Monique Allen [00:18:35]:
Yeah, they know it all in advance. And I tell people, look at, I'm hiring you based on what I saw on paper and based on what I was, the feedback I got in your interview process. But I don't know you and you don't know me. So I'm giving you a foot in the door and you have 90 days to prove yourself to me. I don't have time to feel obligated to keep you just because you got a job. Massachusetts is a no fault state. It's a very easy state to just bring people on and then have them leave. And I want people to feel empowered to show up as their best self.
Monique Allen [00:19:12]:
But there's no way to do that if you don't give them touch points and you don't give them KPIs. And then the last piece of it is over that period of time they have the ability to make micro raises for every KPI that they hit. So they're hired at a rate and they're literally making raises in that 1st 90 day period. Now they also won't make them. Didn't get the KPI, don't get the raise. These are micro raises. Ten cents, fifteen cents, twenty five cents. They're little teeny raises, right.
Monique Allen [00:19:40]:
But the idea is to teach people, to teach the workforce, which has not been taught this by parents or by schools. You are in charge of the trajectory of your professional career. The boss does not owe you your performance. You owe yourself your performance. What the boss owes you is to say, this is what I expect, this is how it's going to be and how I think you should show up and the things that I'm looking at so that you're not in a black box. The experience manager manages all of that. I don't have to manage it. I just show up at the last meeting.
Jack Jostes [00:20:17]:
Well, that's awesome. I love that you have this system in place. You've got clear, one of the key words that you said that I wrote down was vetting because I think that vetting, there's a lack of vetting and I think that I'm curious about this. So you mentioned a lot of this started, you couldn't find people. So many people listening are like, this all sounds amazing, but I can't find people. So how do you have vetting and then how do you have this kind of give and take and coaching and clear expectations in a market where I can't find anyone?
Monique Allen [00:20:55]:
Yeah. Okay, so the I can't find anyone is, I think there are two sides to that coin. One is the market that we're in, right. And we've heard that mantra for ten years. I mean, that's not a new thing at all. The can't find anyone problem is connected to the fact that as soon as you figure out how to find people, the market changes and then you can't find people again. So I think the bottom line with I can't find people is that there isn't a simple one plus one equals two formula that we can follow year to year that makes sense.
21:30: Understanding Market Dynamics for Hiring
Monique Allen [00:21:30]:
In order to find people, you have to be creative and engaged in the market that you're recruiting in every year. And it is dynamic and changing. It's somewhat mercurial right now in the sense that it's actually hard to pin down because we don't know if what we're talking about is DEI and safety, or we're talking about economies and scaling pay and benefits. We don't really know what we're talking about in any one year. So focusing on recruiting as though it is entirely part of your job is required. And it means you're an investigator, and you're both an investigator, kind of in a forensic way, but you're also trying to be a forecasting investigator, like what's going on or what's going to happen in the future. That's a lot to ask an owner who's already tearing their hair out trying to get the work done. So it's hard to find people.
Monique Allen [00:22:29]:
I think the other thing I would say, especially, like, in my coaching. A huge part of what I'm doing in my coaching is really to help people understand their differentiation. If you don't understand your differentiation, you're very often just another one in the bucket. And it's very hard to stand out. It's very hard to get people to even consider you. And I think there can be a lot of kind of disheartened shit. It's like, I put out the ad. People respond to the ad, but then they never respond to me, and they just sort of give up. And I think that's super hard.
Monique Allen [00:23:12]:
And what we need to be able to do is really work your differentiation to the point where you believe so much in what you're doing that you're not going to fall off and be so disappointed that you give up on recruiting. Because I think your recruits can feel your. I don't know if it's disappointment or condescension or what? But they can feel it. And so you really got to believe your talk if you're going to recruit with any success.
Jack Jostes [00:23:45]:
I agree entirely. And it starts, I believe, with the leader of the company. Because if you're the leader of the company and no one works, everyone's a snowflake. I'm glad that you laugh at that, but I had a recruiting workshop and somebody who paid me for recruiting was talking about how the snowflakes. And I was like, hey, you don't talk about that in front of your people. And he's like, oh, one of them is in the office right now and it's like, that's interesting. Good luck, dude. You don't have a recruiting problem. You have a you problem.
Jack Jostes [00:24:30]:
And it starts with you. Who wants to go do that? I don't know, but there is a shortage of people. But there are people, and they are going to pick and choose where they're going to work. And so that's where you're talking about differentiating your company and why they should work for you and then being creative, engaged and dynamic. I totally agree, because it does change from year to year. Many people will just repeat what they did five years ago, post the same thing. I've had people where I asked them like, hey, have you actually read this job post? And they're like, no, we haven't looked at it in years. You've got to be engaged.
Jack Jostes [00:25:19]:
And I think you've shared a lot of really great ideas here, including Team Engine is one that you started using. I think we introduced you to them at an event that we did together.
Monique Allen [00:25:30]:
Yes. At the Summit. That's where I met them, at the Summit.
Jack Jostes [00:25:32]:
Right. So we're a partner with Team Engine, and we've built that into our recruiting product that we help people with with their job posts. And we have a whole online course. And part of it starts with leadership and mindset and a lot of these things that you're talking about. But even you, right, even when we met four years ago, you were ahead of the game in many ways with recruiting and having an internship, and then you're like, oh, here's a way that I can take it up a notch with Team Engine. And you did. And I'm not surprised that you have a 4.7 star average from your people.
Jack Jostes [00:26:11]:
Yeah. And you didn't even know. But that matters. And people Google that and they think about it before they go and work somewhere.
26:22: Normalizing Difficult Workplace Conversations & Why it’s Okay for Employees to Leave Your Company
Monique Allen [00:26:22]:
And I'll tell you, one of the things that I think would be really great for your listeners to hear is if we go back to the normalizing and separation, right. What we do. So there is an enormous drama around leaving a company, and it's a personal affront. Right. You either fire somebody in anger or they leave in anger or there's disappointment because they were never reviewed and they said they were going to be reviewed. They didn't get the raise they wanted, and they don't understand why, they got yelled at on a job and never apologized to. There's all these things, right? When we normalize things like having difficult conversations, when we normalize things like, you know what? I really liked working here, but I need something different. And we normalize that.
Monique Allen [00:27:11]:
We make that, okay. And then when someone gives their two week notice, you don't say, well, fine, just freaking leave now. Right. Those reviews have to do with somebody feeling safe in the company and then safe to leave the company. That's not the experience I had growing up. It was getting yelled at or shamed for not wanting to continue to work with somebody. I think that that is a big way that we build our employer reputation. Not every employer is going to pay as much time as I do on employees.
Monique Allen [00:27:53]:
I study relationship building as part of my study. I teach yoga. I study yoga philosophy. I'm very steeped in how we become better humans. I don't expect every landscape owner to be like that. But we can do simple things like making a clear way of entering, a clear way of being reviewed and considered, seen and valued, and then a very clean exit, a clear way to leave. That doesn't make it so that I can't wave at you at the gas station.
Jack Jostes [00:28:24]:
Right.
Monique Allen [00:28:26]:
That's, I think ultimately what's most important is that I'll have to dig now into Glass Door and see what people are saying. But I literally say hi to and hug past employees when I see them. I have past employees who now own their own businesses, God forbid. Right. Anybody who ever leaves and starts their own business. Right. They're like a pariah to you. You don't want that.
Monique Allen [00:28:49]:
I have people who've started businesses who used to work for me, who are my friends. And so I think that that's a big part of how we destigmatize recruiting and destigmatize being an employer so that we don't say those nasty snowflake comments without even realizing how harmful they are.
Jack Jostes [00:29:10]:
Yeah, I think that's a really great thing to kind of wrap up this conversation, is how do you treat people when they leave? Yeah, it is really important.
Monique Allen [00:29:23]:
Big.
Jack Jostes [00:29:24]:
I've been fortunate. I've had two, really, we call them Ramblers at Ramblin Jackson, and I've had two people leave and come back and that's kind of a cool thing. And actually, I'm going to Delaware to do a video shoot next week for a client with my old business partner. Like, we co owned the company and disbanded. And it was kind of messy, intense, but then we kind of ended it respectfully. And now I'm excited to continue working with him. So I think it's really important because if you burn the bridge with people, they're going to go set little fires.
Monique Allen [00:30:13]:
Yeah, it's true. And ultimately, in studying the nature of relating, like how we relate as human beings, most of the discord, most of the friction that happens is actually happening internally. And it's because we haven't done the work. I'm working on my second book, and a big part of the subject matter has a lot to do with trauma in the workplace and how the trades. Landscape. But all the trades and also entrepreneurship attract trauma survivors. Now, the truth is everybody is a trauma survivor one way or the other, right? But we don't say that they're all the same, but there are these little traumas that are in all people and we know that we act out on them.
Jack Jostes [00:31:08]:
Sure.
Monique Allen [00:31:08]:
And so if I'm going to act out in a particular situation with you, it may not be you. You've maybe triggered something in me. But a trigger, you're a hunter. A trigger is the teeny tiny part of that gun. It's teeny tiny. That's not what's important. What's important is the charge, the fuel, the ammunition. That's what's important.
31:31: The Impact of The Owner's Tone on Workplace Culture
Monique Allen [00:31:31]:
The trigger is such a small thing and we want to place all the blame on another person for the ammunition. We're building that ammunition ourselves. We're stacking and loading. We're doing all of that work and just waiting for someone to trigger us. So when we look at the realm of employment in that way, and you said it, it's top down, the tone is set by the owner and then adopted by the management team. And the bigger the company, the more that'll trickle down. So we have to be thinking about the charge and the ammunition that we're bringing on a day to day basis that's personal. And how we're dealing with it and how this is the gardening of people.
Monique Allen [00:32:16]:
How are we tending the people so that we can help them disarm their own triggers?
Jack Jostes [00:32:24]:
Well, I can't wait to read your next book and have you back to talk about that. That's a whole other interesting topic. So I'm curious to wrap up. What are you doing with yoga? I follow you on Instagram and you're teaching classes all over the world. That's really cool. So tell us, what are you doing and how might people listening who have never done yoga, I shared with you before we pressed record, I've been practicing for about 15 years, and it's a key part of my life. I love it.
Jack Jostes [00:33:02]:
For me, it's partly stress management, but also I do a lot of hiking and rucking and weightlifting. And I find that yoga is like the time where it really helps me stretch and relax and slow down. And that has a lot of, I think, entrepreneurial benefit because a lot of times I'm, like drinking caffeine and writing stuff down and going, going. And then yoga is a good time to calm down. And it's a challenge to do that sometimes to slow down, but that in and of itself, I think is valuable. What are you doing with yoga and how does it relate to others, the landscape folks listening?
Monique Allen [00:33:46]:
Well, I would say there's a couple of levels of why I do yoga and how I do it, and I think a lot of your listeners will totally understand this. I have several injuries and things that made it so continuing to work physically was not going to be possible unless I had surgeries and took lots of meds and whatever. And I didn't like either one of those options. So the main thing that yoga does for me is it keeps me well oiled. Right? So that I can continue to move because of some of my injuries, I mean, I'm 57. I've been in the industry for almost 40 years. It'll be 40 years next year. I've been in this industry.
Monique Allen [00:34:38]:
It beats up your body. And so, very simply, good yoga. So I'm not talking about, like, let me go kick your ass kind of yoga, but, like, good yoga, someone who's going to pay attention to your postures, pay attention to whether you're pulling yourself apart or getting too stuck, is going to really help you use your physical body for more years than you would otherwise. Period. End of story. I literally, in five years, rebuilt my body, and I could feel it through the pain, and then I could feel it through the recovery, and then I could feel it through the returning of strength and then the amplification of flexibility. It took five years, and I'm still working it. And I would say that now I'm kind of on the nervous system.
Monique Allen [00:35:22]:
It's one of the last things that you'd really work on, but that's number one. And I think there isn't a single person who does physical labor that wouldn't benefit from yoga. If you're super strong, then you're probably stiff and not flexible, which means a restorative or a Yin Yoga is going to be really good where you get into the ligaments and the tendons and that's very slow movement. You will literally sit in a posture for two minutes. That's going to help to open your flexibility. And if you love strength, know that strength and flexibility go together. The more inflexible you are, the less potential you have to grow your strength.
Monique Allen [00:36:02]:
For those who are super flexible, injury is possible. It's very easy to have injury, so you need to build strength. So the power yoga is going to be really important so that you're really beginning to build core strength. I was a dancer growing up, and so I was lucky. I sort of came with strength and flexibility and understanding of alignment. But the other really big thing that will happen is you'll start to get a better sense of yourself. Your proprioception will be better, and your interoception will be better. So you will understand where your body is in space.
Monique Allen [00:36:34]:
That makes you balance better, it makes you more nimble. That moment where you go to step off a truck and you lose your footing, you want to land on your feet, that's going to happen because you've amplified your proprioception and your sense of balance. Interoception is really understanding where the feelings in my body? What am I feeling? Where am I feeling it? Yoga really teaches interoception. It helps you to understand how to go in and how to actually be with yourself. And most people who come to me for coaching are coming to me with their hair on fire. And so that yoga, the study of yoga and the practice of yoga will really help put out that fire.
37:16: Overcoming Landscaping Injuries Through Yoga Practice
Jack Jostes [00:37:16]:
Yeah, it was an injury. I had two spine injuries that I had one when I was twelve, and I actually lost my hearing for a day when I was 16 in a gymnastics injury. And luckily I went to the chiropractor, but I had terrible pain. And then it was pain that led me to start yoga. And then yoga then got me. It helped me heal and get stronger, and that helped me then get to where I'm at now, doing all the other exercise. But I can't think of any of my clients that I know personally who haven't mentioned some sort of work related pain that they have. So I'm glad that you shared this because I hadn't thought about how relevant it is to the people listening.
Jack Jostes [00:38:05]:
So when are you doing a yoga for landscape professionals retreat? What's happening?
Monique Allen [00:38:13]:
No, but I love that idea. Maybe because you're a yogi, maybe you and I will do it together. Maybe we'll bring yoga to your next retreat.
Jack Jostes [00:38:21]:
Honestly, that would be so cool , let's do that, that's, that's awesome.
Monique Allen [00:38:32]:
We're ending with a bang. We're ending with an idea. That's what we always do.
Jack Jostes [00:38:36]:
That's right. Love that. All right, well, Monique, so for folks listening, we've got a couple other episodes with you in our show notes. And how else can we connect with you.
38:48: How to Connect with Monique Allen
Monique Allen [00:38:48]:
So, you know, Instagram, Monique.Allen is you know a great place to connect with me. Absolutely DM me there. And then The Lifescape Coach. So I don't know if you've seen my new website, but it's awesome. I'm really, really happy with it. I launched it this year. It's thelifescapecoach.com. So absolutely go to that and you can see what I do as a business coach.
Jack Jostes [00:39:11]:
Cool. Well, Monique, thanks so much for coming on The Landscaper’s Guide and sharing a wealth of information and inspiration to do yoga. That's an awesome takeaway. Awesome. Cool.
My pleasure. It was.
Jack Jostes [00:39:35]:
Well, I hope you learned some great things from Monique's interview about how you can grow your mindset.
I think one of the things that she has is the mindset that she's going to be different and that she's going to adapt what's working and be creative and be a gardener of people. Are you a gardener of people? I loved it when she said that in a podcast interview in the past, and I think it's working for her. If you check out her reviews, check out the reviews from her employees. They like working there and she's got a really good thing going. So thanks so much for checking out this interview and I hope you enjoy next week's episode of the Landscapers Guide with the bag of Beef jerky. So again, grab your landscapers marketing at landscapersguide.com/toolbox.com. See our show notes for a link.
Jack Jostes [00:40:19]:
My name is Jack Jostes and it's been a pleasure talking with you and I'll talk to you next week on The Landscaper’s Guide.
Show Notes:
Watch the full episode + see the transcript at: https://landscapersguide.com/podcast/
Tell us where to send your beef jerky: https://landscapersguide.com/toolbox
Purchase Monique’s book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0578619415/ref=x_gr_bb_amazon?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_bb_amazon-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0578619415&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2
Connect with Monique Allen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monique.allen
Listen to Monique’s episode on Recruiting & Retention Strategies for Landscapers: https://landscapersguide.com/recruiting-and-retention-strategies-with-monique-allen/
Listen to Monique’s episode on How to Start Landscaping & How to Start LifeScaping: https://landscapersguide.com/how-to-stop-landscaping-and-start-life-scaping-with-monique-allen/
Check out Monique’s website: https://www.thelifescapecoach.com/