Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow Show Powered By Stihl. On the Grow show we share ideas, tips, tactics and insights to help you grow your landscaping business. Based on our team's 40 years of experience running a landscaping company and working with other owners and their teams to do the same, new episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays. Here's your host, Marty Grunder.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening whoever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from Grunder Landscaping Co. And the Grow Group. Thank thanks for downloading the Grow Show Powered by Stihl. Today I'm going to talk to you about some tips to help you with the stress that comes along with this. We're going to talk about the blue skies. But first, a reminder, ladies and gentlemen. You can get the latest edition of the Grow show delivered to your phone, tablet or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience. The Grow show is the greatest thing since GROW 2025 in Columbus, Ohio. Man, folks, what an event did we have. We had almost 1100 success minded landscape pros join us at Jason Cromley's Hidden Creek up there in Columbus. We had a great and incredible event. We are still buzzing and so are the attendees. Thank you to all of you that have sent a note, a text, a thank you note, an email posted on your social media feeds about how much you enjoyed and learned at Growing. As I'm recording this episode, Emily and Vince are in Dallas, Texas fine tuning some things for 2026. Lots of planning goes in to Grow folks. And Emily and Vince and Lindsey, my small but mighty team, they drive this event to success. We will see you in Dallas folks next February. Mark your calendars. Can't wait to have you there. To be blunt, it's going to be our best one ever. I know you're saying best one ever. My man. Jason Cromley, San Marty. What the heck. Best one ever. Gene Freeman and Chris Strepnik from Complete landsculptures in Dallas, Texas have laid the gauntlet down. Jason. They said 2026 is going to be our best Grow ever. Who am I to argue with that? Now onto this week's edition of the Grow Show. This week I wanted to talk about managing stress. Lord knows we all have it now folks. And that's normal. Especially for this time of year and for the limited time that you have right now. I do appreciate you taking the time to join me here on the Grow Show Powered by Stihl to improve and get better. I think there is a tendency to think that you don't have time to listen to podcasts now or to read a book or to work on getting better. And that's just not true, folks. And that's a bad way to go.
Many years ago, past GROW host and current ACE peer group member Taylor Milliken from Melosi in Nashville, Tennessee. Many of you joined us there for grow. He said something to me profound and it's really helped me. He said he reads the books that focus on the things he needs to work on at a particular time of the season he's in. For example, he said in late winter, early spring, he reads a book or two about sales. So read a book on sales when we need sales. He said he reads books on strategic planning till middle to the last third quarter of the year. He reads books on strategic planning and growth because that's when he needs to work on that. So I hope you're following what Taylor said there. So right now, stress is real. So doing some education right now, folks, when you think about it is smart. Knowledge is power. Knowledge is confidence. And power and confidence often mitigates fear. Think about it. Think about the things you now know how to do. You didn't know how to do them years ago and now you do. And how, because of your knowledge there, it doesn't worry you as much because you know you can do it. It doesn't concern you. Stress is the same way, folks. The more you learn about what stress is and how you can mitigate it, lessen the impact it has on you. That's what mitigate means. The better off you're going to deal with it. Although I have to be honest, I'm not going to B.S. you here. Stress will always impact you. My goal today on the Grow show is to talk about what stresses me out and what I have learned to help me get through stressful situations and, and hope that it helps you, too. I've got four things to teach you today. But first of all, before we touch on all four, let's talk about blue skies. The concept is this. Think of an airplane. An airplane is traveling and they're in turbulence. All right? The pilot doesn't like, speed the plane up or say, hey, I hope you're liking the turbulence. I'm going to start grabbing the joystick or the controls here and I'm going to make turbulence be even worse. No. What does he or she as a pilot do? They try to find smooth air. They try to find blue skies. So here's a short explanation video. It comes from the app Headspace that I have watched and shared with my students Lord knows how many times, and it touches what I'm talking about. If you're not on the YouTube version of the Grow show, you might want to watch that. You may want to pause right now and switch the YouTube or maybe later on you can watch it. But if you listen along here, you've got in your headphones, you're mowing a lawn, you're driving to a job, you're working on a quote, I think you're still going to get the gist. So let's pause and let's watch and. Or listen to blue skies.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: Take a moment to imagine a bright blue sky stretching off into the distance.
Feels pretty good, right? This is a perfect metaphor for the mind. A blank canvas on which thoughts, feelings and experiences appear.
Okay, so maybe there are just a few clouds, but they tend not to bother us or distract us too much, especially if they're the cute little fluffy variety.
This is how the mind appears when it's calm, bright, serene and happy.
But life isn't always easy. Sometimes there are a lot more clouds in the sky. Sometimes it might be the dark and stormy variety.
Occasionally we might even begin to wonder if a hurricane's on the way. It gets to the point that it's hard to think of anything else. In fact, sometimes we get so obsessed by the clouds that we forget about the blue sky altogether. But it's still there.
Every time you're in a plane and you fly through the clouds, there it is, right? Without fail, blue sky.
It's easy to forget that what we're looking for is already here.
And that's why we need reminding.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: All right, so now that you've got that and we frame this in a little bit, let's talk about the four things. Number one, ladies and gentlemen, no if, ands or buts. Stress is real. Embrace it. All right, you've heard me say before, all planning is good. So plan for stress. You know what's going to happen. It's spring. It's most likely going to be a difficult time of the year for you. Are you planning? Actually, now that we are doing a lot of snow at Grunder Landscaping, we really don't have a downtime prior to doing snow. I'm not sure I really understood that, like winter was for us to get caught up. It was a little more laid back. I mean, that was not a good way for me to run the business, by the way. But I certainly understand now that stress is a year round, daily thing and also understand that this is Only something I have come to understand in the last 10 years, folks. I don't think I understood stress and I don't think I completely understood how it impacted my team. Here's a big aha for me. If I was stressed out, my team is stressed out too. And I don't think I understood that. That's so ignorant. But I'm just being honest with you. And there are many times that your team is more stressed out than you are. And it sometimes is hard for owners and leaders at the top of the org chart to understand this. When I was a young man, a student back in the late 80s and early 90s, I can honestly tell you I never heard any of my friends or classmates at the University of Dayton telling me they were so stressed out. But you hear that a lot today. Why is that? I don't know. I'm not for sure. Maybe when I was younger, too many people hid their stress. That's not good. Maybe today more people are talking about it. That probably is good. If someone says they are stressed out, I think you got to listen to them and you got to try to help them get through that. Now, it is true. Maybe it's not as bad as they think it is, okay? But the stress is real and planning can help a lot there. Do you have a schedule board? Are you planning for tomorrow? Tonight? Tonight. When you. Before you knock off for the day at the office or go to bed, are you planning for tomorrow? I mean, this sounds weird, but like, I set my clothes out the night before. I have my backpack by the door. I grab the backpack and I go out the door. I pack my breakfast. My little routine that I have, it's in the fridge. I have ice in my cup in the fridge and my drink ready to go. I. I don't have to think a whole lot. I can be focused on how do I get to work. How does the best version of Marty Grunder show up at Grunder Landscaping Company? Whether I'm in our Dayton office or our Cincinnati office or I'm flying someplace to teach, how can the best version of Marty Grunder show up? So take some time to do that. I always say, boss your calendar, don't let it boss you. Do you run an enterprise system like Aspire or LMN that helps eliminate manual tasks and paperwork that can eliminate stress. How can you have less uncertainty in your life? How can you control the variables? What plans can you put together to help? I know I spend about 60 to 90 minutes normally each Sunday going through my next two months. Calendar. I have a one note. We're going to show that up on the screen right now. So you just get a little feel for it that you can use. And you can see what I'm doing here. It's nothing fancy. If you're watching on YouTube, you're seeing it right now. I type it all in there and I go through it with my calendar open on my phone and one note open on my two monitors. And I'm going through it methodically, this exercise that I do every Sunday afternoon. It helps me think through so many things. I can see where I have issues of upcoming work and there's some magical work it seems to do on my mind. I might see a conflict. I might see something I want to do more of. I might see that I need to go to Columbus and my youngest daughter and her husband live in Columbus. Well, gosh, I need to let them know, see if maybe they can, you know, go to dinner with me that night before they make other plans. I might want to prepare for something better. I might see an appointment on my calendar. And at the time I set it up, it sounded like a good thing, but now, looking at it, I can't do that. I can't have a dental appointment at 7 in the morning when I don't land in Dayton, Ohio, till 1am the night before and I got to give a talk at lunchtime, I'm going to be shot. No, no, I can't do a dental appointment then. And it's, I see it two months out, I start planning things like this, folks. Planning like this eliminates stress. Think about all the ways you could plan and eliminate stress in the process. And most likely think about this. Make more money, too, by being more efficient. Stress is real, folks. It's going to happen. Lean into it, plan better, and have more certainty. Okay? So embrace the stress. Lean into it and plan. Boss your calendar, don't let it boss you. All planning is good. Number two, be aware and learn from your mistakes. I find many of us repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again. We have a bad run of things and we think erroneously, by the way, that we're too busy to fix it right now, and we'll fix it later and we don't change anything. And Then guess what? Two weeks later, 30 days later, 60 days later, 90 days later, the same exact thing that you swore you would never do again happened again. Did you get your best client really upset because you didn't tell them you were coming ahead of time? We use Aspire here at Grunder Landscaping Company. And there are notifications you can turn on in there to do this for you automatically. When you have the notifications turned on the job and the job is scheduled or moved, it will automatically send an email or a text to the client letting them know what you're doing, who's doing it and when. It's absolutely awesome. And it's automatic. Okay? Now you got to take some time to set it up so there's some work involved, but it's automatic. Problem solved, stress erased, don't have to worry about it, right? Yes. You have to learn how to do that or you got to do whatever step you need to take to eliminate the problem, but it's solved and we move on. That's how you learn, folks. You're aware, you're present in the moment. You don't let a string of mistakes wear off and you fix it right then and there and you move on to the next one. Seth, our president here at Grunder Landscaping Company is a genius when it comes to what I just mentioned. I'm very good at recognizing mistakes and explaining why we can't keep doing them, like from a financial perspective. But I'm not very good at the solutions. I'm not a technically inclined person. I tend to overcomplicate things. So I went out and found someone in Seth to help us there. You can do the same. Maybe it's a team member, maybe it's a consultant, maybe it's one of our ace peer groups. Maybe it's a life changing event like grow where you go and you meet other people and you find out that you aren't alone and there are solutions to tough problems and you don't have some strange disease. It's not curable. Okay? You gotta be very aware of what's going on and engaged. It's not easy. But the best leaders and managers are fair. They balance criticism with praise and they are aware of the issues. They know everything is not easy. They know that it's stressful. So they're gonna work on this, they're gonna plan ahead, they're gonna be ready for it. Before I came up here into the Stihl studios to record this Grow show edition, our sales team was in there. They were jamming music, they were playing games, they were laughing, they. That's all Don's approach there to getting people to relax and find their best foot forward. Stress is real, okay? Great managers see the good big and small and they recognize them. So be aware and learn from your mistakes. Don't sweep them under the rug. As they say, folks, stay calm and learn from them and eliminate stress in the future. And then finally, I want to drop a bomb here. When you admit that you made a mistake, do you know what you do for the culture of your company? And do you know what you do when you worry about the what, not the who? And you just work on fixing things, okay? So be aware and think about that. What kind of manager would you want to work for? What kind of manager would give you stress? What kind of manager would calm your stresses? All right, so all planning is good. Eliminate the stress, lean into it, be aware, find the mistakes and fix them. And then, number three, practice, notice, pause, allow.
One of my favorite people that I have been blessed to spend some time with is legendary leadership guru and author, Dr. John Maxwell. He's the author of over 90 books on leadership and has influenced me greatly. A few years ago, while having lunch with John at his golf club in Florida, he told me this. He said, and I quote, marty, my friend, things are never as good as we think they are, nor are they as bad. They are somewhere in between. Amen, Dr. John. But what I find is that we overreact to things that causes us not only to want to be stressed out, but your team to be stressed out as well. As my partner, Vince Torchia, over here in the grow group always says, as goes the leader, so goes the company. As goes the leader, so goes the team. Years ago, when my father passed away unexpectedly, I had a very tough time with that and ended up seeking professional help for my grief. I met a wonderful psychologist who helped me immensely. And once I got over the uncomfortable part and over the feeling, it was a bad thing to have to do this, which really was unfounded. I learned a ton about dealing with stress from this lady. I was in a groove, and then I fell out of that groove. And my wife told me when she said I was getting too mad too soon about things that didn't matter, she asked me to go back and see the psychologist. And when I did, I think I learned a life changing lesson. And that lesson was this, that when you react with anger, when your intensity is so high and you react with anger, no one hears your message. All they see, hear, feel and see is the anger. They tune out the message. And I remember when she was telling me this, I was sitting on her couch in her office and I remember having these flashbacks of all the people that I had yelled at. My neighbor, my kids, a friend, an employee, and all the embarrassment that I had done to my personal self. And the damage that I had done to countless relationships by reacting with anger. All right, I always want to get better, folks. I learned from that. I started seeing another psychologist a few years ago as the one that I mentioned to you. She retired. And even though I was doing well, I wanted to stay in a good place. And I learned some stuff again because I had heard on it was either a news program or I read in one of my magazines or a podcast or something. You know, just like you take your car to get preventative maintenance when it's still running well, you should take yourself in for mental well being when you're doing well. This time I learned another morsel that I want to focus on the third step here, and it's called notice Pause allow. And that has been very helpful for me. And here's how it works. I hope it helps you notice. Pause allow means this. You notice something that's happening. You don't like it. Old Marty would react right away, what the heck are you doing? Knock it off. Stop. I'm noticing this. I'm noticing this. You know, I'm kind of tired right now. I'm a little revved up. It's spring. A customer just yelled at me. Three employees, just for no reason, quit. We wrecked a truck. Whatever. I'm not in a great mood. I'm noticing this. I'm not liking what I'm seeing. I'm not liking what I'm seeing. I'm going to notice it. I'm taking it in. I'm not going to let anybody see me sweat. I'm going to pause. Hang on, Marty. Get a hold of yourself. Don't let anyone see you sweat. Pause, pause. I noticed it. I'm pausing and then I'm looking and I'm allowing it. I don't have to react on this. Okay? One of my mentors, Clay Mathilde, wrote this wonderful book that I keep behind me in the studio here. Dream no little dreams. Clay had a great quote that I think is very applicable right here. And he said, never make a decision before you have to, unless it's something safety or there's a situation that you absolutely have to act upon. Notice Pause allow works well. And let me tell you a little secret. Sometimes when I'm mad, I will say, hey, Ben, can you come see me tomorrow at 9am and Ben will look and he'll kind of think. And then he has that whole night to think about, what did he do? Why does Marty want to see me at 9? That gives me time to process it. And I'm going to tell you my secret here, all right? Hopefully Ben's not watching. And then I can think through the night, and then I can come in in the morning. I can say to myself, I often do. Why was I so mad about that? I'm going to tell his manager. I'm not going to delve into that. And when Ben comes and see me, I'm just going to say, hey, I haven't talked to you for a while. How are you doing? Is everything okay? Are you liking your job? Talk to me. Ben doesn't think anything of it, and I'll let his manager deal with whatever I saw. Notice, pause, allow. Never make a decision before. You have to think about the people that you would want to work for right now. Think about your clients that you love, and think about the clients that you can't stand you're contemplating firing. I'll bet many of them never give you the benefit of the doubt. They react with anger. They hurl personal insults, or they say, my favorite. Well, at my company, that's not how we do it. You know, dude, I don't really care what you do at your company. Your company is not my company. And I don't want to hear that. I never say that, okay? I try to never say that. I should say so. Be the kind of person others want to be around. Practice, notice, pause, allow so you could process things accordingly and not overreact. And do not let your team see you sweat. You are a leader, and you're a leader in the making as well. Number four, take care of yourself. Eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep. I'm probably in a better spot in this department than I have ever been in my life. Folks, some of this is just with modern medicine and the more information that we get, you know, my. My good friend Bill Ewell, one of my longtime friends, said, you know, I wish you would have known all this stuff. I wouldn't have eaten so many Oreo cookies and fried chicken. And you might be laughing right now, but we ate Oreo cookies and fried chicken like they were going out of style when we were kids. And really, in my 20s, I ate that kind of stuff, too. Okay, that's not good. Eat right. Diets high in protein have helped me. Protein eliminates hunger, cravings, and foods like Doritos, McDonald's, any kind of fast food, sodas, and even many of those protein bars that you think are healthy. They're loaded with sugar, folks, and they're not good for you. Between my lovely wife, Lisa, who basically could be a nutritionalist and my health coach at Brother the Brother Fitness. Look for them on an upcoming edition of the Grow Show. I've learned a ton. I've lost almost £25 in the last seven months. It was all slowly but surely and I have had to give up some things, but it is amazing how much better and more energetic I feel by eating right. I've never been a big drinker folks, although I do love a hazy IPA and I've scaled way back on those caloric bombs. And that's because my why? Two things I love hearing from people that have recognized my efforts and tell this almost 57 year old, not very good looking guy with a bald spot in the back. Unfortunately. Marty, you look great. How much weight have you lost? You know that makes me feel all right. But here's the big thing. I have two grandkids now, Harlow in Connecticut and Sylvie in Cincinnati, Ohio and I really want to see both of them grow up and be adults. I want to be a cool grandpa with energy to chase them around and do whatever I need to do. So to do that I have to eat right and I got to have the energy and the fitness level needed to be an energetic grandpa.
Exercise. Eat right. Exercise. I'm going to say this till I'm blue in the face folks. Walking is exercise. Walking every time you listen to the Grow show is exercise. Get moving. If you play golf, walk. When you park your car park at the back of the lot. My wife used to make fun of me. Now when we do that she likes it. We get some extra steps in. Get a watch like this Garmin watch I have that counts your steps and gamify the process. But get walking and lifting. Especially if you're over 40 years of age, it's critical a couple times a week to lift for 20 or 30 minutes. Just make your muscles ache some slow and good reps. Push the weight up as far as you can, start slow and stay consistent. So eat right, exercise and then finally sleep. I used to very stupidly say I'll sleep when I die. You got to get sleep or you're going to die is really what someone should say. I consistently get six and a half to seven and a half hours of sleep. I'd rather do eight. I'm trying and in full disclosure, my personality and how wired I am, it's hard for me to sleep. I wake up in the middle of the night with ideas. I I reach for my phone, I put something into my onenote, I queue up emails. I don't know what it is, but I'm working on that. I'm not perfect either. And I also, in full disclosure, use melatonin a couple times a week to help me sleep. That issue of looking at my phone, I gotta fix that. I'm not perfect, but overall, my health is outstanding. Even my doctor, Dr. Nick Davis, has noticed it in my blood work. Eat right, exercise and sleep, folks, and then think again about the blue skies. Here's that video and that audio again to remind you of that concept. It has helped me get through some of my darkest days. Take a listen and a watch.
[00:22:56] Speaker C: Now again, take a moment to imagine a bright blue sky stretching off into the distance.
Feels pretty good, right? This is a perfect metaphor for the mind. A blank canvas on which three thoughts, feelings and experiences appear.
Okay, so maybe there are just a few clouds, but they tend not to bother us or distract us too much. Especially if they're the cute little fluffy variety.
This is how the mind appears when it's calm, bright, serene and happy.
But life isn't always easy. Sometimes there are a lot more clouds in the sky. Sometimes it might be the dark and stormy variety.
Occasionally we might even begin to wonder if a hurricane's on the way. It gets to the point that it's hard to think of anything else. In fact, sometimes we get so obsessed by the clouds that we forget about the blue sky altogether. But it's still there.
Every time you're in a plane and you fly through the clouds, there it is, right? Without fail, blue sky.
It's easy to forget that what we're looking for is already here.
And that's why we need reminding.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Again. Things are never as good as we think they are, nor are they as bad. They're somewhere in between. That's where they are. That's where they're always going to be. Consider that and think that. Also in the show notes is a really good 10 minute meditation. Also from Headspace. That's an app you can get on your phone. I want you to use that one as well. And to be blunt, I was in a great groove meditating a few years ago and I've gotten out of it and I've not used it as much as I should have and I need to get back to it. Doing this growth show me saying this out loud is a push for me to practice what I preach and get back to meditating. So I'll be getting up early, putting on my noise canceling headphones, sitting in my favorite chair in the family room before I start my day when it's still Dark outside meditating. And I will use this video that we're sharing with you to help me. Please try it yourself. I know it might sound a little goofy that I'm telling you to meditate, but do it. Some of the most successful people in the world, folks, meditate. You want to be successful, don't you? You have to take care of yourself. Embrace the stress. It's going to happen. Learn from your mistakes. Don't be worried about who's wrong. Be worried about what's wrong. Correct those things so you don't deal with that stress again. Practice notice, pause aloud. Don't let anybody see you sweat. And then finally, eat right. Exercise. Get some rest. Get a Y tied into that personal part to make that easy. To maybe give you some willpower to turn away the Milky Way candy bar or the buttered popcorn or the giant cheesesteak sandwich with double cheese. Okay, now I know I've thrown a lot at you here in the last 23 minutes, but I also know this is going to help you deal with stress. I admire you for following along to this point. I'm positive it will help you and I am hopeful you will listen to this dish in a few times and try what I've said. It's working for me, folks. I know it is. I hope you see the blue skies. They truly are up there. Okay, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show Powered by Stihl. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Grow show. And if you can give it a rating or share a comment that helps more success minded landscape professionals find us, we do not have near enough comments. If you want me to continue to bring this content, can you give me a little boost and go on there and rate it right now? I would be very grateful for that. And if you really want to help us, take this edition out right now on your cell phone and text it to a friend and say, hey, Marty's onto something here with his Blue Skies podcast. Listen to it and then why don't we talk about it? Okay? All right. Well, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show. See you next week.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Grow Show. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And head to growgroupinc.com for more information and resources to grow your landscaping business. A special thanks to the folks at Stihl whose support makes this podcast possible and whose reliable handheld power equipment makes our jobs easier daily. We'll talk to you next week.
