EP145: Life-Scaping: An Interview with Monique Allen

Yeah, absolutely. So my company is called the garden continuum and we're out of Massachusetts. And I have been in this industry for almost 40 years. It's a little scary. It's absolutely been my life's work and you know, it's iterated over the years. It's changed. You know, you're in a business long enough and you grow and you're, and you evolve. The mission has gotten tighter and tighter. in focus on the environment, just really, really important that we're thinking about the environment. And then the business has become more and more triple bottom line. So really focusing on the planet and the people and the profits and really not, you know, I know people love to talk about profit first and that's like super important. But, but I think if we, if we're not embracing the people on the planet, there's, there's issues. So really the company has become. a real staple in our community for looking at the work we do, landscape development, in a really environmental way. And probably about 15 or 18 years in, I started teaching and I started helping people both with horticultural development, but then also business development. And so that's how the business coaching of the Lifescape Coach got started.

Yeah. So the world changed, the world was changing, right? So I started in the eighties and, you know, I, I started really with the whole. building and subdivision boom, like just, and, and so I came in conventionally, I came in using conventional fertilizers, using pesticides when we needed herbicides and we needed it just conventional is all I knew. And then little by little, I started getting very interested in health and wellness and then started to realize that there was a correlation. I read the book Silent Spring and I started to just understand that, you know, a lot of what we were doing was pretty detrimental. And then so the more I learned, the more I was doing education based marketing for my company. And of course, this was back when you I had a newsletter, you typeset it, you sent it to a printer, printed it, folded it, put a wafer, licked a stamp, put it, you know what I mean? Like it was just a different world. But education based marketing became really important to me. And the more I did that. the more I was getting feedback and questions. And then I kept kind of digging. And ultimately what really flipped this for me was that my neighbor recommended me for the conservation commission in my town. I didn't even know what a conservation commission was. You know, I had really stopped with pesticides and herbicides. I had stopped all of that, but I didn't know about. you know, the Department of Environmental Protection as it pertained to landscapers or anybody who was working outside. And that's what ultimately tipped the scales. I worked for nine years on my commission. Then I did a huge environmental project for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And my whole world just, you know, just totally about face and shifted into that market realm.

Yeah. And the funny thing, though, is, you know, the book Silent Spring was written a lot earlier than that. So so we did know. But it was known in a much so the the Wetland Protection Act was put into place in 1973 in Massachusetts. Oh, wow. And and so we knew, but it was still really big in the sense that it was municipalities, governments, states, the nation like it wasn't we weren't thinking about the fact that we had we were able to make impact in our own yards and negative impact at that. So that was what really started to shift.

Yeah, for sure.

Oh, no, don't worry about it. I paid my dues. I'm happy about the age.

Yeah, the people aspect, I incorporated my business in 2000. And, you know, I think the part when the people became really important was... as we went into the great recession and um the market really really changed and it never went back it as far as people were concerned it never went back it was kind of a wound that happened in that time that that required at least in my opinion it required that we thought about our clients and our staff differently and um and so i started to I really pivoted during the Great Recession because we really shrunk. And I was really surprised at how we shrunk. You know, I expected, you know, I work for well-to-do people. Why would they go away? Whereas the people who were more upper middle income stayed on, but the really wealthy went away. Like I didn't understand how the markets worked. I didn't understand how the life cycle of homeownership, I didn't understand. So there were all these things that I realized I was kind of asleep to. And I started to really dig into that client avatar. And when, once I built that and I started to build the life scape method, then I realized that I could take that same strategy and turn it inward and begin to create the avatar of the ideal landscaper, the ideal gardener. And, and then. We had the pandemic and that just flipped everything on its ear again. And we realized that it is our role and our requirement. Actually, this happened when everyone was complaining about millennials. Actually, that's when it first happened, where as owners, we actually have to take responsibility for our workforce that, you know, this idea that I'm going to put an ad out and find a perfect person was this ridiculous unicorn strategy. And and so I realized that that I had a duty as a as an owner. to, um, to find people with the right raw materials and then provide them with what they needed to, to level up. And that was a, that was a big eye opener. Um, and it was a slog. It was a real slog, but now that we have the systems that we have in place, I tell you, it makes for such a better business. I mean, hands down better business. If you have systems for your people.

Yeah, well, you know, it's I think it's Patrick Lencioni. I think I'm saying his name right. He wrote the five dysfunctions of a team and he talks about like the ideal team player is hungry, humble and smart. And that, you know, whether they've been doing some of my best employees have only been in, you know, started with me from another industry and they had a transferable skill or they were just home gardeners. But they're just, they're hungry. They just have this passion and tenacity for this work. And ultimately this is, I mean, All contracting work is hard work. So if you don't love it to some degree, it's going to kick your ass. And so you just need to be able to have somebody that has resilience, stick-to-itiveness, some hunger. You know, gosh, hopefully they laugh at a joke. They can laugh at themselves because that's important. So yeah, really important stuff, I think.

Right. And I, I always tell people that, you know, the landscapers, they're the lowest of the low, right? We're like, we're like below the contractors that do building. We're below, um, you know, cleaners and mechanics. Like we're like the dirt workers and, and who, what parents in their right mind ever says, I hope my kid becomes a landscaper. So. To me, it became really, really important to elevate the industry so that we could show that we were smart. We could show that we were valuable and that, you know, I want to be able to tell a parent of a kid who comes out of a trade school, we got your kid. We're going to take care of your kid. Let me tell you something. your kid can make a lot of money and can grow business and really grow in the business. They don't have to own their own business. But like this, this business, this industry afforded me everything I own and everything that I've done and my kids going to college and all of that. I'm not neck deep in debt. So it's, it really is. It really is important. I think in the whole contracting world and the whole trade world, which is near and dear to my heart, my brother's a mechanic, my, my father. was an immigrant and HVAC, commercial refrigeration. And so I grew up in this world and this whole idea of looking down your nose at tradespeople to me was like, nope, no, it's why I wrote my book. I wanted to be able to show that these are the most important, some of the most important workers we ever have, because you're never going to offshore the work we do. And so we want it to be an honor. We want to return it to being an honorable profession. where people are proud about what they do.

Well, and also remember... You had a great thing in one of your podcasts where you said it was the one where you were talking about, I think it was the, the, like the estimating mistakes or something, or, or maybe it was the, the save or spend. That was it. It was a save or spend one. It was a really, really good episode. I think one 42. And you said something about simplicity scales and complicit complexity stalls. Right. And in that particular in that particular vein, when we're talking about. the high art elements of our trade, it is art and you can't automate it like that. You sort of lose the automation potential there. Now, if we would just want to have fields and if we look at what happened with big ag, you know, they had to simplify, simplify, simplify, I mean, these huge tracks of the exact same thing, and then they could automate the hell out of that. And, and look what it's done to our environment. So automating the trades only I think has. a certain level of, of potential. And then what we end up automating, like I went and automated my lead generation. That's what you should be automating, right? You should be automating lead gen. You should be automating all of the qualifying of your leads. Like there's so much stuff we can automate, but we're never going to automate pruning a prize Japanese maple. Because nobody's going to want a robot to ever touch that. So we have to honor the skill of maybe it's woodworking, maybe it's plumbing, maybe it's pruning, whatever it is. That we want to continue to elevate those elements of the trade because that's what makes us special. And that's what makes us valuable in the industries.

I would totally agree. I actually did a video on my YouTube channel about the difference between fine gardening and landscape maintenance and that it's not an either or equation. It's you need both. You need to be able to have landscape maintenance contractors that can do all of the broad work, everything from mowing to major leaf cleanup to plowing. You need that. You have to have that for public safety. You need to have that for community hygiene. You need that stuff. And not every person is going to want an edible garden or an English garden or a pollinator garden. I mean. Not everybody's going to want that. So you need them both. And it's the, when I think about not wanting to oversimplify, it's like, don't water down your trades and say that they're all just the same thing. I loved how you said, you know, you have the lifestyle business or you have like a trade business, right? And so those businesses, the trade businesses, I think you had a guy on that did shower stalls or something. And he was like, man, if somebody asked that they wanted a sink, we just walked away. We just do showers. That's it. That's awesome because you're really clear about your service and every company can do that. Whether you're really working a simplified trade business or a really high-end lifestyle artistic business, even that you can't go too wide. You'll never do it. So I think that clarity of your service is so important. And then, you know, you price well, you have good profit. You can take good care of your people and it works well.

sometimes you just need to hold the soil back.

absolutely. Absolutely. And I think that there's this niching down is so important. And I think people get really scared about niching down. But I think ultimately, niching down really does offer you a lot of potential to attract your ideal client so that there's less friction in the whole sales cycle, because they already want you. They already want what it is your company does. And then, of course, I think the... The tripping point with artists, and I'm thinking you're going to agree with this, is that you have to decide. You can be the only artist, right? And then you're never going to scale. Or what I did was I created the Lifescape Method. I wrote a book about it, and now I teach it. And so everybody who works for me becomes a Lifescaper. That's actually what they do. It's our brand. It's our artistry. But it's not just me. I mean, I have clients that I don't really even know because... my team is working for them. So I think that's the other piece of it. You should really have to think about, is it just me? And that's, that's valid for some people, or can you, can you codify it so that you can teach it so that you can replicate yourself and, and that mission within your company so that you can grow.

Yeah, that's brilliant. I'd love to know who that artist was. When you figure it out, let me know.

I was like,

Yeah. So I was working in this way for a long time. And I was cycling through people. And I felt like I was trying to... mentor and get people to apprentice with me. And, and then I was hiring clients, you know, clients were hiring us and I was telling the same story over and over again. And so I thought, gosh, you know, there's gotta be, there's gotta be a way to like encapsulate what is, what it is I'm doing. Because if I say I do environmental gardens or sustainable gardens or low impact design or whatever, people all like scratch their head. What does that mean? What does that mean? And I was like, I gotta simplify it. And so the idea of Lifescape came into my head because my two big complaints are that we create what I call featurescapes, which is I got to have a hot tub. I got to have a patio. I got to have a walk. I got to have it. And people will just buy stuff and jam it into their yard. And it's like not cohesive. And it just felt like a featurescape. To me, they weren't attractive and they weren't even, I didn't want to really sit in them. And then the other side, we had what I call deadscapes, which is. You know, it's kind of that whole HDTV, dig a hole just the size of the pot and then stuff the plant in it, all pot bound. And these, you know, landscapes would look great the minute they were done, but then they would never survive because the system, nobody ever did anything to the living breathing system. And I thought, oh, well, what I want to do is a life scape. I thought, oh, that's kind of catchy. And so I started writing and I realized that I had to really trim it down. So I came up with three tenants. organized, healthy, and wow. And what most people want is wow. That's what they buy. That's what the media sells. That's what HTTV sells. That's what the big box store sells is the wow. The problem is if I buy the wow, when I bring it home and I don't have a plan for that wow, I end up putting wow on top of wow. And then you've got your feature scaping. If I don't know what to do with that wow thing. And I take that plant, like one of the ones around here, everybody likes to buy a hydrangea and then they don't know where to put it. So they put the pot near their door, the garage, and they just leave it there because they don't know where to put it. And then it dies there. Right. So you have the dead scape. So I was like, OK, the wow is important. Human beings are actually designed for wow, because that's how we know that something is healthy or good for us as we go for the bling. Right. But if it's if it's not organized, then the system will fail. Mother nature is a very organized system, even in our chaos, it's organized. So everything has to be organized from the design to the actual system, the soil system, the biological system has to be organized. So that was number one. Number two is when you have an organized system, you have the ability to build health. And just like building health in the human body, it's a long game, right? So if you're sick all the time, one of the first things you want to think about is how healthy is my gut? right? Because that's where our immune system lives. Well, guess what? The soil is the gut for the plant because plants don't have digestive tracts. The soil is a digestive tract. So we can think about the system from a health perspective. We have a total leg up. And then the wow, you can do whatever you want in the wow part of things when it's inert, right? When it's not living, when it's living, you just got to connect the wow to the environment, right? And then it'll work. And so what I did was I just, drill down in each one of those things. And I actually have a chapter that you would probably love. It's like the five mistakes podcast that you did. I freaking love that one. That one is so good. The estimating mistakes. Cause you talk about like not taking enough notes and taking too long. And then you talk about the whole, like missing that bridge time. I wrote a whole chapter called build it, which is like, it's all well and good that you know how to build a patio or you know how to build a deck. But if that's what you're pricing, you're always losing money. And so in the book, I took the Organize Healthy and Wow, and I looked at the actual development of a landscape and then built the Lifescape coach and said, you do the exact same thing. You need organization, health, and wow, even in your business, and you can use the exact same method in your business. So that's the Lifescape method.

So everything from the structure of your business, you know, how is your business structured? Do you have an org chart? I know some people don't believe in having org charts, but most of the people that I coach, their org chart looks like this. It's just like long flat line. It's like them and everybody else. And so. I really think that the organization of the business has everything to do with how you've structured your business, how you structure your team, your chain of command. I think chain of command is one of the most important things. I tell people that I run a... benevolent military, because I just like chain of command. I think it just makes sense. It's like, you want to know who do I talk to in this particular situation? So it's not about, you know, top down and, and being rough, you know, with people, it's really just about knowing who's the person that you get to go to talk to. So it's that whole mindset of your business. And I did a whole class on this. So I, I sell a program called the landscaper's freedom formula.

And that program talks about business mindset is first, right? So what we talked about before we even got on the call, that difference between the hobby mind and the business mind, right? So it's like, look at that mindset mastery, really decide. If you've decided to become an entrepreneur, then that is your job. You don't get to be carpenter first. You have to be business owner first. From there, we moved to services. And it really is about identifying your services and going deep and being careful of going too broad and being jack of all trades and master of none. It's kind of like the typical landscape truck that's got like 17 bullets down the side of the truck saying all the things it does. It's a task list. So we really try to hone in on service offer. clarity. And then from there, it's, you've got to become a really good salesperson. So we do a full sales strategy. Like how do you know how to sell, how to ask for the sale, which is one of the biggest things that people don't do, right? How to work your pipeline. And then if you're growing outside of being owner operated or just like two or three people, then there's a whole segment on team building because you've got to be able to build a team. And then finally, we have a cash flow system. And so the idea really is to help small businesses look at their landscape companies and look at them such that they understand that they are a system just like nature is a system. And when it's out of balance, things go wrong. So your job is to develop the system and then manage the balance.

Yeah. And it's a living, breathing system. So when we think about, so I tie everything back to nature when I'm working with business and I keep, what I try to get people to understand is that business is a system. Families are systems. And so these systems aren't static. Systems have moving parts and they move and those parts need tending. They need maintenance. They need attention. And so we want to build systems that can, you know, even automations, you know, we have, my website has so many automations. But I need somebody looking at it from the back and saying, are these automations still working? And are these automations, are they still the automations we need? Because we may have a mission for our company, but our vision is going to change over time. And so sometimes you have to go in and we have to alter, tweak those automations. So we have to tweak our internal business systems when things change. And in landscape, and I'm sure this happens for building contracting as well. If you have like a super dry, hot year, you know, the way paint works, the way roofing works, the way, you know, all of that stuff like a change of a super wet year. I mean, it's the worst thing in the world to be an outside painter, you know, so we have the same problem. So all of these business systems need a lot of. Just kind of regular check-ins so that we know, okay, in the environment that we're dealing with right now, is the system still working or do I need to make a tweak? And that's that going back and working on your business and knowing that it needs your attention, just the way, you know, you go out and mow your lawn.

I mean, I work my website every week. We have a, I work, my platform is HubSpot. And we do inbound marketing and education-based marketing. All the lead gen is organic because I write. So I publish two blogs. One is a business blog and the other is a gardening blog. And so we're. just kind of, we're in there all the time. It was, it has been the best investment that I've ever, ever, ever done. It brings our leads in. They just come in overnight. It does so much work for us for recruiting. So I can't begin to tell you how important it is, I think, to have a really good website that has a lot of things automated, especially if what you'd rather do is like be designing gardens.

Yes. So the really interesting thing about the book is that more than anything, the book doesn't make you money. I mean. It's not a moneymaker. What it is, is it's a, it's a marketing piece and you know, it's nominal price to buy the book, but it's a, it's a marketing piece and it's an education piece. So the book was written so that I could educate anybody who wanted about these ideas. And then if somebody bought the book, now they have language to talk to me or to talk to any landscaper. So the way I organized the book was that you could be. a landscape professional and buy it, or you could be a homeowner and buy it. And the idea was now they, you would have shared language to be able to talk to each other. And then I did a lot of blogging about it. And I'll tell you, one of the coolest things that happened was when people started filling out my get started form and saying things like my arrival experience is just terrible and I need it to be better. I need more of a life scape and I have no, no wow factor. You know, they would say these things are like, Words in my book are words in the blog. And so the ultimate payback for this is that I have shared language with my ideal client. And that has been worth every effort of writing the book. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. And I think the one thing I would thank you a lot for that, that that's phenomenal. And I look forward to having y 'all click on my website.

But the thing, the thing that I just want to make sure too, is that like, you don't have to write a book. Like I wouldn't want someone to think that they couldn't do it because they don't have the interest in writing a book. Like it can be. It can be so simple. Like we have a YouTube channel and then everything's transcribed and that's there and that's creating SEO. We've got just short little eBooks. They're free that people can download. So if you're a subject matter expert on some particular thing, you can literally for such short money, work with somebody. You can actually just talk it into your phone and then there are really great platforms that will translate and. create an ebook for you. And for short money, you can have somebody develop that out. And I think that that's the kind of thing that that curse of knowledge, you want to turn that and make it for your benefit. You want to take that, like you were talking about the guy who knows so much about wood. He could make such a cool little ebook about wood and right. And, and have little shots of the different grains and colors of the wood. And then the best possible uses. This is best for cabinets. This is best for furniture. People gobble that up. They love it. And nobody is happier than when they can brag about their contractor. I think one of the things that is so cool about our industry is that the best clients, and there are so many of them out there, when they find a contractor they love, they brag about them. They feel like, oh, it's my, you hear people talk about my contractor, you know, and they refer them. It's not, it doesn't have to be a book. It can be a small bit of information, but get some of that knowledge in writing and on your website or on your Facebook page or wherever. So important.

Totally. So,

Well, I think that probably the healthy is the most important because you want to have a you want to have a healthy organization. Right. So we have financial health. We have brand marketing and sales health, you know, that whole cash flow that's connected to to your brand strategy, your marketing and your sales flow. Right. So. Cash, cash flow is king, right? Got it. Got to have it all the time. So those systems have to be really healthy. But then I think when we take a step back, one of the things that I know is curious, your take on this is that. A lot of contractors are tearing their hair out. Most of the contractors that come to me are at that point of tearing their hair out. They just, they just, they're like in burnout. I mean, I've been there. I still go there sometimes because, you know, we are contractors and it just kind of happens. But being able to have the nervous system regulation tools, the very healthy coping mechanisms. you know, had my share of not healthy coping mechanisms. I grew up with childhood trauma. So I was somebody who struggled with rage, with anger, with all sorts. We've got to figure out how to be able to be owners and be at peace, right? Not tearing our hair out. I mean, again, there's going to be moments. If you're a contractor, you're going to tear your hair out every now and then. It just is the way it is, right? But you don't want that to be. your MO where like you open your eyes in the morning and the first feeling you have is dread. And that seems to be so common. So for me, healthy within the organization starts with the owner and then it trickles down to the next tier and so on. And we do not want the owner responsible for the lowest person on the totem pole. They need help. So the bigger the organization, the more buffering and help is needed within the system. And normally what I find is that the training that I do really is about personal self-regulation, learning communication tools, learning how to deal with, I mean, a lot of your employees are going to come to you and then they're going to express all of their parental trauma with you, right? So your employees are going to treat you like the mother or father figure that they're still pissed off at. This is the way humans act. So we need to be able to have healthy organizations. And that's been a real focus for probably the past like 10 years is figuring out how to develop, really help to develop people so that they're not popping off all the time.

We know how that goes.

Yeah, I also think that, and I agree with you 100%. And, you know, there's that adage that, you know, your business will only grow to the capacity of your skill or your knowledge as a business owner, right? So we can say, I don't want to do it because I only have one person. But the more you'd say you're not going to do it, then the harder it is to build up. But the other piece really is, like, people have a really hard time selling. They have a really hard time asking. for the sale they have a very hard time pricing themselves properly and this has a lot to do with feelings of um low self-worth low self-esteem fear around money so you know part of the limitation of growth within business part most of the limitation of growth within business is all in your head and so um really people need to that's why i did the the freedom formula the way i did because people don't want to talk about that Right. They want to talk about services and sales, but it's all embedded in it. Right. Beginning to shift our mindset. So we're not walking around thinking I'm a used car salesman, but instead saying I'm not a salesman. I'm actually I'm actually peddling solutions. I am giving people an opportunity to solve their problem by using my service. Why would I ever hold that back? So that is also part of a lot of nervous system regulation is needed for that. A lot of emotional intelligence is needed for that. And so it's embedded in all of the pieces. And that that to me is the is the crux. Right. That's the health piece. And yeah, it's I love it. That's the part I love so much.

20 years ago, you could scream and yell at your contract, at your employees. I mean, you know, I even did it. Like it just is very different. This whole idea of like psychological safety, workplace safety, emotional. Nobody talked about that in the 80s or 90s. So it's a different world.

You never sell with your own wallet ever.

it does.

Yeah. And what will spread if you, if, you know, not to open a whole nother topic, but just staying with this one is people love to talk about culture and, you know, you're either going to set the culture. And and then nurture it or it's going to get set on its own and it will get nurtured within the system. So there is always culture. And the and the question is, what is the culture and are you taking responsibility for directing it? And we can direct it into really, really negative ways. And I loved what you said about, you know, like, are we are we tipping the scales so much that we're giving everybody an award just for showing up? You know, oh, my gosh, no, thank you. But but, you know. The other thing about ownership is, you know, you can put a you can put a stake in the ground and then draw a line and say, this is my company. It's my company, my way, my rules, my mission, my my vision. If you like that and you want to work here. Fabulous. I'm all over that. If you don't, there's the door. No hard feelings. you can go and kind of normalizing that thing. Like it's okay for me to say, I want my business to be my way. Like a big thing for me was that we have a substance to free workplace. So nobody smokes on our jobs. You can smoke at home all you want. But I had a lot of people tell me you can't do that in the construction world. Everybody smokes in the construction world. And I was like, well, that's fine. Just not in my company. And so I think. owners really do have an opportunity to, to decide what is right for them. And I think in your push and pull conversation that you did that, that episode, that was awesome. It's like, find the thing that is like, it's easy for you to be in that space. And then, and then you tell people, if you want to be in this space with me, this is awesome. I'd love to have you. If it's uncomfortable for you, Hey, you know, I'll see you over at the, you know, at the, at the little league field when we see our kids, but we don't have to work together.

Oh, I have. And then it's a huge erosion of culture. And what ends up happening is it builds resentment. And then this is where the owner, instead of pulling their hair out, they're actually becoming soul crushed on the inside. And so that's just sort of the inverse relationship of that kind of burnout. And that soul crushing burnout, that's actually a harder one to reverse. And I remember it. I absolutely got to that point. And it really was very hard. Like, I didn't want to keep going in the industry at all because I was kowtowing to everything that everybody told me I had to do. And when I woke up and determined that the only way to stay in business was to do. what felt in alignment with me and you know, life scape was born and all this stuff was born out of that. And some people might think it's super weird, but it makes me happy. And if you want to work with me, great. And if you don't find it just, uh, I don't do that anymore, but it, that's actually a learning curve thing. So we're not taught that in school. We're not basically taught that in families. So, um, yeah, entrepreneurs have a, They have a, they have a mighty climb, you know, to, to really do well in their businesses. And I love supporting them.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And if you're in a business for a long time, so having been in a business as long as I have, it has been a lifetime. What worked for me in my twenties was different in my thirties. And then I started having kids and it was different when I had children and I had the requirement of, you know, being a mom too. It was different when I was single and different when I was married, you know, so. So the work that you do ultimately gives you resilience to grow as a human being. Those systems end up being the foundation of the house, right? So you build a good, strong, reliable foundation, build a really, really good frame, and then you can start to expand. But if you cheap out at the beginning and you don't do the work, then yeah, you can grow to a certain extent, but you're not going to feel the same. I mean, I'm 57. I don't feel the same as I did when I was 40. But I'll tell you that I am much less like stressed and burnt out. Like I'm ready to finish my career, but it's very, a very, very different feeling because of what I've been able to grow. And so I think it's never too early to start doing that mindset work. It's never too early to start. unpacking. And it's never, I have never met anybody who doesn't need a little bit of therapy. I mean, we all do. I've been in it, you know, in and out my whole life. I mean, it's the best possible way to process a lot of the things that generally you don't really want to process out loud. You want to process it with somebody that's safe. And so, yeah, kudos to anybody who takes that route.

Yoga. It's all yoga.

Yeah, I think the one that I am going to pick because I think your listeners probably really like it. It's The Gap and the Gain. Do I have it over there? I don't think I have it there. It's The Gap and the Gain. Um, it's the, it's a, it's a really, really good book. It's, it's simple and straightforward and it talks about, um, the higher achievers guide to happiness. There it is. Um, and, um, it's Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan. And it's so cool because it really simply talks about how we often beat ourselves up and we measure. how we're doing at the end of the day, when we look at everything on the list that didn't get crossed off and we look at our lives that way, you know, I'm 57 years old and I still haven't blah, right. Instead of, so we're living in the gap all the time instead of turning around. and looking how far you come and measuring from how far you've come. And when you do that, you see that you're really, you're crushing it. Some days you do little leaps. Some days you do massive leaps, but it's this whole system of how to look at your life, your business, your family through the gain lens instead of the, instead of the gap lens. And it's a super easy read. It's also on audible, which is awesome. So I think people will really, really like it. And I think the information is actionable.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm on Instagram. That's my happy place. I don't do a whole lot of socials, but Instagram, Monique. Allen. You can always DM me on that. Thelifescapecoach. com is my coaching website and thegardencontinuum. com is my business website if you ever want to take a look at it. But yeah, the best way to reach me is through Instagram, Monique. Allen.