Kyle Gillette is an ACC certified coach, behavioral profiler, and author.  He’s been coaching for over 15 years, turning professional in just the last couple of years.  He focuses on helping his clients become more self-aware and unlocking the talent within.  He is the creator of the SAGE Mindset Podcast and The SAGE Mindset course.

In this conversation, Kyle shares about the value of assessments and how you can come to such self-awareness through those assessments, how we can create processes to get small wins that would really help with challenging circumstances; especially when we have a goal that we were bound to get lots of rejections on the way to that goal, how to handle vulnerability, how to have a growth mindset even in the midst of challenging circumstances, and more!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Kyle Gillette’s Website
• Kyle Gillette’s Podcast | SAGE Mindset Podcast
• Kyle Gillette’s Course | The SAGE Mindset
• Email Kyle Gillette
• DISC Assessment
• The Motivators Assessment
• StrengthsFinder 2.0
• The Enneagram Personality Test

 

Transcript

People of influence know that their voice matters, and they work to make it matter more.  I’m Andrea Wenburg, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.

Today, I have Kyle Gillette.  He is an ACC certified coach, behavioral profiler, and author.  He’s been coaching for over fifteen years, turning professional in just the last couple of years.  He focuses on helping his clients become more self-aware and unlocking the talent within.  He is the creator of the SAGE Mindset podcast and the Sage Mindset podcast course.  He’s married with three daughters.  They live in the Pacific Northwest.

In this conversation, Kyle shares about the value of assessments, like personality assessments and how you can come to such self-awareness through those assessments and reflection and feedback that you can get after taking those.  He also talks about how we can create processes to get small wins that would really help with challenging circumstances, particularly when we have a goal that we were bound to get lots of rejections on the way to that goal – especially when it comes to getting a job or getting sales, that sort of thing.

And because Kyle has done a lot of work with men, in particular, I asked him, “What are some of those struggles that might be more common for men?”  And so, he talks a lot about vulnerability, and how to handle that, and how to develop that and have a growth mindset even in the midst of challenging circumstances.

Now, I want to make a small apology for the audio.  My particular microphone, I thought, was all set up and ready to go and unfortunately, I ended up recording with the wrong microphone through the majority of the interview, so I apologize for that.  Perhaps someday, I will have everything perfect, but until that day, I appreciate the grace that you give me even when the audio isn’t perfect.

So, this is the interview with Kyle Gillette:

Andrea:  All right, Kyle Gillette, it’s great to have you on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Kyle Gillette:  Well, thank you for having me.  I appreciate it.

Andrea:  Kyle, you do a lot of work with folks on how they kind of show up, and their mindset, and things like this.  Can you tell us a little bit about your company and what you do?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, so I run a business called Gillette Solutions, and there’s two things that I do.  One is I’m a coach, and coaching [is] the idea of asking people questions and helping them pull the answers from within themselves.  And then the other piece of what I do is behavioral profiling.  So, I take a look at people’s personalities through assessments, and then we dive very deeply into what those results mean, and pull out new self-awareness and growth opportunities from those conversations – both in the objective way with the assessments and then in a much more subjective way in the coaching conversations.

Andrea:  Okay, cool.  So, what got you started in this, and what led you to start Gillette Solutions?

Kyle Gillette:  So, I’ll back up quite a bit to kind of get to the heart of what happened.  So, when I was in college, I was finishing up college doing exercise science or kinesiology, and I’d done an internship in physical therapy.  And the guy I worked with was wonderful.  He did amazing things with his patients.  He did this weird thing called Strain Counterstrain that you put a muscle in a strained position, but it actually releases the pain on the other side of the muscle.  It’s this really neat thing, but in the midst of all of it, I realized that it’s not something that I wanted to do.

And so, I’m in senior year, kind of panicked.  I’m behind in school because I messed up and didn’t pick the right classes.  And so, I’m taking nineteen units in a quarter system, which is a nightmare.  And I really want to graduate my fourth year of school, not go into fifth year.  And so, I’m working my butt off, but I’m not paying attention to my job future.

And I bump into this guy named John, and he’s going to India on his trip.  And he says, “Hey, do you want to come with us?”  And I said, “Sure.”  So, I head out to India, and when we come back, he invites me to join him in this men’s mentoring program that he’s helping to run.  And the setup was there was a pet resort – and yes, a pet resort…

Andrea:  Pet, P-E-T?

Kyle Gillette:   Yeah, where we took care of around a hundred dogs at night and around dirty dogs in the day.  And so, the dogs would spend the night there, and then the other dogs would play in the day.  And that “profit” version of the nonprofit helped to support the men’s mentoring program.  And so, he invited me to be a part of the men’s mentoring program, so I interviewed.

I still remember being in the farmhouse – it’s this old, white farmhouse, just perfectly square farmhouse that was built in 1885 – and it was a beautiful setting.  It’s in San Luis Obispo, California.  And I remember sitting in this old couch, talking to the president of the nonprofit and also the director, and they were asking me a bunch of questions.  And in the midst of the interview, I just felt like I was being sucked and pulled down into the couch like it was… not in a negative way, but like I was being grounded and pulled into this place.

Andrea:  Like settled in.

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah.  So, by the time the interview was over, they basically offered me the job.  And I didn’t even think twice; I accepted it.  And what the job was, was living with these guys that were off track in life.  Eighteen to twenty-five-year-olds, up to six at a time, that were off track in life, and I’m supposed to help them get back on track through life skills, job skills, that type of stuff.  So, fast forward to moving to Washington, there’s this thread in my life of helping people, and mentoring and coaching people.

And I was working in a megachurch doing HR for them – there’s about a hundred employees and three thousand members or something like that.  And so, I got introduced to assessments, and I got to do an assessment on every single employee and spend an hour conversing with each employee about their results.  And then I fell in love with that tool.  I fell in love with the ability to learn about people’s personalities and to talk very bluntly about their personalities and help them as a result of knowing this information about them.

And so, I quit.  I quit my job and started Gillette Solutions because I knew that if I could help create more self-awareness in people’s lives and use the roughly now fifteen years of coaching experience and bring that into a coaching context with the business experience that I’ve had also, that there’s a lot of value there.  And I like the freedom of being my own boss as well.  So that’s the very short version of how Gillette Solutions came about.  But it’s been a wonderful ride, and I’m never turning back in any other direction.  This is the path.

Andrea:  Hmm.  So you’ve encountered another personality assessment kind of junky, if you will.  I love them too.  What assessments have you used in the past?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, I’ve taken a lot – you know, StrengthsFinders, Enneagram that type of stuff – but my expertise is in the DISC & Motivators assessments.  So, most people are probably familiar with DISC which is a measurement of basically four different emotions or a measurement of the “what” of your behavior, whereas Motivators is a measurement of the “why” of your behavior, the thinking patterns behind your behaviors.  And when they tie together… it’s by no means a complete picture of someone because that’s not possible, but it’s a much more clearer picture.  Let’s call it a standard definition picture of someone’s personality.

Andrea:  Yeah.  What have you found to be really helpful to folks when they take an assessment – whether it be the DISC or something else – when they’re taking an assessment of some kind, and they’re learning about themselves?  Have you found there to be benefits?  Have you found there to be challenges with using assessments for them?

Kylie Gillette:  Yeah, I think that the challenge sometimes is people have taken them before.  And so, what happens is they say, “Well, yeah, I’ve taken it before.”  So, they take it, and they’re not as engaged with the assessment as it could be because their experience with getting the results is a fifty-page document that they kind of scanned.  But when I do it, it’s much more… they take it and they still get that fifty-page document, but then I go over them personally.  I basically create a narrative of the results, and I ask them questions throughout the conversation about their results.

And so, there’s a little bit of resistance sometimes with some people upfront.  But then when you really help them to see themselves in the data – especially these negative patterns that can be easily fixed – that’s when you get this buy-in.  And that’s the fun of it, too, because all of a sudden, they have all these aha moments of, “Oh, that’s why I behave that way,” or “That’s why this person is like this, and we don’t get along.”  And then you’re able to use that to help them make forward progress.

Andrea:  Yeah, it feels like folks really appreciate the validation if they like the results.  If they don’t like the results, then they feel very resentful toward the assessment and question themselves, maybe even.  But like you said, if folks take time to dive in a little bit and do the reflection and really think about how it really does show up in their lives and how it could potentially help them to change for their future, that really does…  I’ve heard people say over and over about how big of a shift they can make because they’ve learned more about themselves and how they work.

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, 100%.  I mean, I have a podcast myself called SAGE Mindset podcast.  And SAGE stands for self-awareness, accountability, growth, and empowerment, and definitely, the biggest key is that self-awareness part.  One of the trends that I’ve discovered with the majority of my clients – like, 70% of them – when they go through this assessment, they get this what I call a doormat result.  And I know it sounds harsh, but basically what it is is there’s people that really want to serve others – which is a beautiful thing – but then a lot of times need to do it at the cost of themselves.  And so they end up getting stepped on as a result of that mentality.

Andrea:  When you say they need to do it at the cost of themselves, what do you mean by that?

Kyle Gillette:  So, there’s this altruistic instinct that they have, and so they will push aside their own desires, their own wants, in favor of somebody else’s.  So, if they’re driving to the store and they noticed that there’s something wrong on the side of the road or they get a phone call from somebody or somebody asked them to move for the third time, but they have other obligations, they’ll say no to these other obligations that are about them so they can say yes for someone else.

So, they’re consistently saying no to themselves but yes to other people, which looks really good on the surface, but as a long-term pattern is really a negative thing.  So, it’s wonderful to serve others, of course, but a lot of these folks have overdone it and they’re burnt out.  And so, I’ll have the conversation with them about serving others at the cost of themselves, and I’ll point it out that, “You’re reacting like a doormat.  You’re getting walked on here.”

And many, many times people start crying, and then they start standing up for themselves because somebody has pointed it out to them directly with care and empathy.  And then we come up with strategies on how to overcome that tendency because that’s who they are.  And they should be serving people because that’s who they are, but not overly.  And so, helping them overcome that is the work that we do and the self-awareness side of that equation.

Andrea:  So, what’s the difference between being healthy in your service towards others versus this kind of doormat persona that people can take on?  How do people know that the line is there?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah.  So that’s a great question.  I interviewed somebody yesterday, so I’m going to kind of steal from her.  And she had three C’s, and she used calm, clarity, and confidence.

Andrea:  And who is this?

Kyle Gillette:  Alison Dunn is her name.

Andrea:  Okay.

Kyle Gillette:  And it was great because basically – if you think of those three as the three legs of a stool – if you don’t have calm in your life, then something is off.  And if you don’t have clarity in your life, but you do have calm, then something’s off still.  And if you’re not confident, but you have the other two, something is still off as well.  And so, whatever those value words are for the individual – and obviously the key is to know those values – but if the individual feels like their values are tweaked, their values are off, something’s amiss, then this is something to reflect on and lean into.

When I work with my clients and they establish their values, it creates amazing clarity for them.  And then they can stand up for themselves, for what they want or what they don’t want.

Andrea:  Hmm, totally.  All right, so we’re kind of in this really weird time where there’s so much unemployment.  And by the time that this interview comes out in July, I’m not sure where we’ll be.  So many things have moved so quickly.  Maybe there will have been a bounce back of some kind, but more than likely there are still people out there who are thinking to themselves, “I have been out of work for months.  I need a job.  I want a job, but I’m starting to feel depressed, discouraged, feeling like I don’t have what it takes to go find that job or losing hope that that job is out there.”  How would you speak to somebody who is in that kind of position right now?

Kyle Gillette:  So, the person is stepping into this place of they’re already in unemployment and they’re stressed.  And I’m going to imagine that this individual is low in confidence.  They’ve got this little bit of overwhelm, the amount of things that are piling up in their life are just adding more and more, plus there’s so much uncertainty.

Let me just back up to some experience I’ve had.  So, when we moved to Washington State – we moved from California to Washington State –  we just did it.  We just moved and went for it, but I didn’t have a job lined up or anything I could step into, which some people might think is crazy.  But it actually kind of fits the scenario we’re talking about here.  And what I ended up doing was applying to fifty jobs, five-zero jobs.  And I got two interviews of fifty jobs; so demoralizing, defeating, you know, confidence was shattered.

But I created a system.  I continually applied, I continually responded, and I continually showed up to whatever it was I needed to show up to.  And eventually, I did end up landing a job in a senior living facility, which I ended up not liking – but I worked that job for a little while.  But I think the key thing was that I found confidence in my system because everything else is out of my control.  I had no control over what job I was going to get and when I was going to get it, but I could control how consistent I was with applying and responding and you know, improving my applications.

And so, I just continued to apply and continued to be consistent.  And then it happened again; I quit that other job, and I applied to forty jobs.  But the confidence was different because I had more clarity of what I wanted, and I knew my system.  So, then I landed a job that I really, really enjoyed that eventually led to this one.  But I think what we really want in this season of unknown is control, and so you create as much control as you can in your situation.  Whatever it is that you can have control in, then I think that really helps boost the confidence.  And that allows you to endure the continued rejection, to endure the continued unknown.

Andrea:  Hmm.  One of the things that I just heard you say was that it’s really important that people are looking for the win not in whether or not they get the interview or whether or not they get the job, but in how consistent they are to applying for the job, for example, or to the system that they’ve created.  So, you’re saying that it’s not just about the end result, but it’s also about taking the steps along the way?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, you have to get those small victories.  You know, the idea that, “This little thing that I’m doing right now – this little mindset shift that I’m having in my life right now, this thinking change, this behavioral change that I’m doing right now – is going to create a massive opportunity for the future, create a massive change for my life in the future.”  But you have to do the little things now to even have a chance for that future.  And so, if we can have integrity and be faithful to those little things behaviors and thinking now, it makes a huge difference in the future.

An example of that thinking would be, “I get to apply to all these jobs so that I can have a future job,” versus, “I have to apply to all these jobs.”  That little tweak in mindset from “have to” to “get to” creates optimism, creates hope.  And that’s what we need when we don’t have control.  When we feel so out of control, we need some hope.  And then we can start to bring control into our lives in the way we respond to the situation, and that creates wonderful hope for everybody.

Andrea:  Hmm, yeah, I really like that; that shift from, “I have to do this,” to “I get to do this.”  Now, obviously, there can be a lot of rejection, and there’s going to be a lot of rejection.  Maybe somebody who is in this position has already experienced a lot of rejection.  So, how do you handle rejection in the midst of all this?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, you know, when I experienced ninety rejections or eighty-eight rejections or whatever it ultimately was, I always would look back after a week or so.  I’d look back and go, “What am I doing wrong?  What am I doing well, and what shifts can I make?”  I mean, they’re all learning opportunities.  And failure and rejection is an opportunity for growth, or it’s an opportunity to get beat up and feel down.  And so, when I am rejected now and then, it’s an opportunity for me to grow from it.  It’s an opportunity for me to learn from it.  And it’s almost like before you even get to that place where you’re applying, we have to set our minds to say that, “I’m probably gonna be rejected.  I’m probably gonna fail in these attempts as I apply to multiple businesses.”

It’s going to happen because if you’re applying to ten businesses, they’re not all going to say yes.  And so, if the mindset says, “When I get rejected, I’m going to reflect on this and learn from it,” then those experiences feel way different, and you have a much better perspective.  And the long-term result of that perspective is really powerful.

Andrea:  Yeah, I think that’s really important.  We can’t go into any kind of position where we’re offering ourselves, whether that be offering ourselves in a job interview or applying for a job or in sales, whether you’re trying to get a sale.  Or even, you know, writing a book and trying to get a book deal and how many rejections are you going to get before you finally get the one.  And I think it’s easy for folks to take those personally and like you said, if we start out with that idea that, “Okay, look, I know that statistically there’s no way I’m gonna be accepted by every single place that I apply, and it would be a headache if I was.”

Kyle Gillette:  Right.

Andrea:  So, first of all, knowing that you’re going to be rejected, but then second of all, when it happens frequently or more than you’d like, you need to take a step back and then it sounds like we just need to reflect on, “Well, what is it that I’m doing that I could tweak?”  Not, “How am I a failure,” but “What are my tactics,” maybe.  Or “How am I showing up that I could tweak in order to be able to get the result that I do want?”

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, I mean, that’s the self-awareness piece.  That is so important.  I mean, how do you do that, right?  Well, you journal.  I mean, I’ve been journaling since ‘99.  I’ve got twenty-one years of journaling under my belt, and it has changed my life, period.  Every year, every week, every day, those journal entries are changing my life.  And you can define journaling however you want.  You know, it could be stories, it could be thoughts, it could be rants, it could be whatever you want them to be, but it’s just an opportunity to reflect.

And I think that’s really wonderful, but then we’re doing it only in our strength if we’re not careful.  And so that’s why I believe the next step is that accountability piece because we’re thinking growth mindset already, because we’re going, “Okay, if this doesn’t work out, how can I grow from it?”  So, that’s wonderful, and that’s a good piece.  But then we can’t do it on our own because, you know…  I’m married and so every single one of those rejections that I got from those employers was a punch to the gut because I really needed employment.

Andrea:  Yeah.

Kyle Gillette:  And it was a punch to the gut, but I had my wife and I had friends that kept me accountable and supported me through it.  And so, as people step into this… and this is a wonderful moment to be able to do this because we’re in a season of slowing down, a season of reflection.  So, if we start the practices now when there really aren’t many jobs available, but we get into the practice of reflecting and we get into the practice of creating accountability in our lives, then when it really, really gets hard and we’re going after it – for jobs or going after opportunities – then you’ll have that practice under your belt.

And for me, I mean, every Tuesday at 6:30 in the morning, I meet with two other dudes.  And we talk about various things, but we’re always keeping each other accountable to the things.  In fact, we came up with a new list of things from each of us today.  And so, every week, we check in and say, “Hey, how are you doing?”  And I have some networking goals, I have some marriage goals and whatnot, and they’re going to keep me accountable to those.  And I think that support is tremendous, that support… even if it takes fifty applications to finally land that job, you have that love and that support and that accountability to keep you sticking to it; to keep you sticking to journaling, to keep you sticking to applying, continuing to track your system, etc, etc.

Andrea:  Hmm.  So, I know you’ve done a lot of work with men in particular.  Do you see any particular kinds of ways that this situation of COVID-19 and you know… there’s a lot of folks that are like we mentioned; people who are unemployed or trying to boost their sales or whatever they’re trying to accomplish, but they’re having a hard time doing that.  Can you speak to maybe what you’ve seen in men, in particular, that might be a big struggle for them?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, generally speaking, men have a hard time being vulnerable.  I’m in a circle of friends, men friends… that sounds kind of funny, but I’m in that circle of friends that are men that for the most part are fairly vulnerable.  And my closest guy friends are definitely vulnerable and willing to share, like I said with you about the accountability stuff.  But generally speaking, it’s not necessarily a pride thing.  I mean, some guys are prideful, but it’s more a fear of being vulnerable, a fear of being found out.  I know that in my life, you know, I’m partially handy.  I’m not super handy, and so I resist doing things that are handy.  And I also resist reaching out to guys that know how to do it because I feel like that I should just know.

And I think a lot of men have that mentality in a lot of areas of life.  Like, they should just know how to get to a certain location, or just know how to deal with the problem at work, or just know how to deal with the problem at home or whatever it is.  But it’s this willingness to humble themselves and to speak up about the struggle, and that requires vulnerability.  That means that I don’t have it figured out, that means that I don’t have all the answers because there’s this pressure as men to have all the answers and to be able to fix anything and everything, both physically and also in situations.  And that’s not fair, the weight that we put on ourselves… that doesn’t make any sense.

Andrea:  Why do you suppose men do that?

Kyle Gillette:  I think that there’s this relational disconnect.  Most men don’t have a great connection with other men.  And so, we feel like we’re all out on an island trying to figure this out on our own.  And so, that’s what we try to do, but if you ask a couple of questions… a little bit dive in and a little bit more deeply within, they’ll open up.  But people are so afraid to do that.  Men are so afraid to do that with one another, to actually admit the weaknesses, to actually admit that they want that support and need that support.

And so, getting there is a challenge, but it ultimately is as simple as asking a couple questions over a cup of coffee.  And then that opens the door, and then it gets deeper and deeper over time, so you can’t expect things to happen instantly, but I think that that’s a big piece of the issue.

Andrea:  So, Kyle, as we’re kind of starting to wrap up our conversation, I’m curious – if you could give people a kind of a last piece of advice about being a “Voice of Influence”, what advice would you give?

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, I think that being yourself is extremely important and having people around you that call you out when you’re not.  Because if you can just consistently be who you are, and have other people support you in that and call you out when you’re not being who you are, not who you’re meant to be, right?  I feel like we all have this purpose, this calling on our lives, and we’re supposed to live and meant to live in a certain way and have an impact in a certain way.  And when we stray from it, if we have that support around us, then we know we’re straying.

So, I think that those two things are really important.  Confidently live out who you are, and make sure you surround yourself with people that believe in you and will call you out when you’re not living the way that you intend to live – you know, living out of integrity or out of alignment.

Andrea:  That’s great advice.  All right, so how can the listener find you, or is there anything in particular that you’d like to tell us about what you offer?

Kyle Gillette:  Sure, yeah.  So, best way to find me is going to gillettesolutions.com.  And one of the things that I love to do is just to talk with people.  No sales pitch, just a conversation, just a networking connection, conversation, and you know, who knows where that goes.  I love to connect with people, obviously, through the email kyle@gillettesolutions.com.  And if they want to hear more from me, but mostly from interviews that I’ve done, they can find me on my podcast, which is the SAGE Mindset podcast, and that’s on whatever channels people listen to podcasts.  Those are the best ways to get a hold of me.

I just love having conversations like this; talking and learning about one another and exchanging ideas, because that always leads to something.  It’s that growth mindset, that those little changes that impact us long-term.

Andrea:  All right.  Well, thank you so much for being a “Voice of Influence” for our listeners today, Kyle!

Kyle Gillette:  Yeah, thank you for the opportunity!