June 4, 2026 • 15 mins
ThinkingAhead President Greg Boucher lays out the 3 mental constructs you must master in order to enter your flow state, and execute strategically, including how to build momentum, learn from your wins as well as your losses, create productive routines, batch work, maintain focus, and more.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today what I wanna do is go over three mental constructswith you that deal all about strategic execution.
(00:10):
The first thing is for those of you who have momentum,how to build on that momentum for the rest of the year.
Next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about learning fromyour losses, and we're gonna t- talk about learning from your wins.
And the third and final mental construct that I want us to go over is some executive skills.
(00:33):
Now, part of your outstanding strategic execution kinda deals with getting into that flowstate, and you get into the flow state when you start enjoying what you do every day.
So I want you to remember that part of being a great headhunter andbeing a strategic executor is if you just learn to delight in the daily.
(00:56):
You will build momentum if you delight in the daily.
And how do you delight in the daily?
By being super active and thinking activity.
Also, be thinking about achievement.
Activity without achievement is like motion without progress.
It's like your back wheels spinning where you're justspinning like crazy, but you're not getting any place.
(01:21):
One of the things we need to r- realize as headhunters is that recruiting is just a lot of routine.
I got friends who are dentists.
I got friends who are lawyers.
I got friends who are CPAs, and we all bemoan the same thing.
There's so much routine and so much drudgery to what we do.
But my friends who are CPAs and surgeons and lawyers, the ones who arereally successful are the ones who are always thinking about how to get into that flow state, delighting in the daily by getting into the zone.
(01:51):
Those are my friends that I enjoy being with becausethey're looking at the routine in a very, very good way.
Now, it's really important to get in shape with delightingin the daily and keeping your routines going, and here's why.
It takes four times as much energy to put an object in motion,according to Newton, but it doesn't take that much to keep it in motion.
(02:15):
You gotta put your nose to the grindstone and your shoulder into it.
If you haven't been doing what you need to do to get into the flow state,takes four times as much energy to get it going as it does to keep it going.
That is what contributes to momentum.
One of the things I've heard from a lot of new people is that, "I just wanna make placements.
I wanna make placements.
I wanna make placements.
(02:36):
I wanna get billings out the door.
I wanna make money." And that's true.
We all feel that way.
We all feel that way.
But here's the thing, if closing placements and getting invoices out thedoor and making money- Is really, really, really your main focus, then what I'm gonna submit to you is that you are gonna live daily with discontent.
(03:00):
There's 240 working days in a year.
Assuming you didn't make more than two placements or more than one placement in a day,then that means you will live with 234 disappointing days if all that you're doing is focusing on the placements and the billings and the money that you're gonna make.
(03:24):
That's, that's a hard way to live.
So what I wanna beseech all you guys on is this (03:26):
to help build momentum, to help improve your strategic execution, keep your eyes somewhat less off that goal of billings and placements, and keep it more on refining your process in creating a fluid motion in what you're doing, improving how you submit candidates, improving how you scrub down candidates, uh, how you pitch your services to clients.
(03:55):
Get into a fluid motion there, and you're gonna find yourself being a whole lot happier.
Don't focus on the placements.
That's a byproduct of everything else going good.
You'll build momentum if you stake your daily life on whatsatisfies your soul, which is getting into that fluid movement.
Don't focus on the dopamine hits that come from when you enjoy the little distractionsthat come in your day or the momentary blip that comes from the high of making a placement.
(04:26):
That was the first mental construct.
You improve your strategic execution by building momentum, and you buildmomentum by delighting in the daily and developing these things right here.
Second thing here is let's learn and win.
You will improve how you serve the marketplace bylearning from your wins and learning from your losses.
(04:51):
Really important to understand that you need both ofthem to get into that really, really good state of flow.
So here's a few observations that I've had about great producers.
Number one, they freaking study themselves.
They will send me reports that aren't part of the Thinking Ahead s-portfolio of, of reports and self-assessments, and they just study themselves and how they've been doing, and that's so true of lots of winners.
(05:18):
Do you do that?
Learn from your past.
So the reason it's important to study yourself and be learning and tryingnew things is because of this: As we mature in the business, we lose that wonderful sense of innocence and naivete that helped us to grow.
We've lost the, the innocence and the naivete of when wewould try new things and make mistakes and learn from that.
(05:43):
So learn from our failures.
Let's try new things- And that's gonna help buildmomentum, that's gonna help with our strategic execution.
Wanna hit a couple of things about good intentions, 'cause we need to learn it's reallyimportant to understand that when you write those goals down, they are important.
(06:05):
Own it.
Please own it, because you've got to understand that just because crap gotin your way doesn't relieve you of being accountable to reach your goals.
The road to Hades is paved with good intentions.
Have you ever heard that expression?
We gotta reach down deep inside and figure out a way to make it happen, 'cause the inverse is true.
(06:29):
So you get to Hades through good intentions, and youget to good intentions th- by going through Hades.
Both work either way.
We can't soothsay ourselves and judge ourselves by our good intentions, 'cause here's the realdeal: the banks, corporate, your family, the rest of the world judges you by your results.
(06:54):
You as winners, you're learning best when you really focus in on daily results, or maybeweekly, maybe even as long as monthly, and not your good intentions, you're gonna make progress.
And your long-term sustainable ability to win is gonna come from you acceptingthat good results is external success, but getting back to that flow state makes for internal success, and that's what we want you to have, is internal s- success.
(07:26):
Placements and revenue, super-duper important, but if the dopamine hit from a placementonly is what you're looking for, then you're gonna live with a lot of discontent.
And realize that getting into that state of flow is actually gonna create joy for you.
Well, let's sashay off of these first two constructs, and I wannawrap up with some rapid-fire ideas that help with strategic execution.
(07:53):
Here are some quick ideas to help you with your execution.
Number one (07:56):
keep it simple.
Keep one thing in front of you on your desk at that moment when you're executing.
Until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction.
What's in front of me is the most important thing I need to do,and any distraction or any stimulus that comes in is a distraction.
(08:19):
Keep it simple.
Keep one thing in front of you.
So if you're building lists, if you're working a call block, if you'rescrubbing a candidate down, keep that one thing in front of you.
So ready to go to number two?
This thing could be life-changing for you.
Single handling absolutely helps out with strategic execution.
(08:41):
So one of the things I wanna encourage you to do is whatever- Stimulus comes your way, emails,which is gonna be the predominant thing, voicemails, paper that comes across your desk.
Doesn't happen so much in virtual land, happens here all the time.
Just think about this.
Think about touching it one time, and if it comes in, only openit up if it's an email if you're gonna act on it and process it.
(09:07):
Otherwise, if you don't know who it's from or you don't really know whatit's about, let it sit until you can batch answering all of your emails.
Now, I know there's a big desire to go touch everything, you know,and then decide, "Do I need to act on this?" Don't even do that.
Whatever-- whenever you touch something, touch it one time.
(09:27):
It can save people 80 hours annually if they adopt the habit of single handling.
Let me tell you what that means for you.
If you make 200,000 a year as a headhunter, and you get to claim back 80 hours of your time,that means you're gonna make 8,000 more dollars because you're not touching stuff more than once.
(09:53):
8,000 bucks is a chunk of change.
Would you agree?
One of the other things that I've seen is a compulsion to closure.
It just means they're just naturally wired to get itdone, get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done.
Some of us who are perfectionistic spend so much time trying to get that last 20% of somethingexactly right, a proposal going out the door, an email, a candidate write-up, whatever, and trying to get that last 20% just exactly perfect has been proven to not be worth it.
(10:26):
It's much better to use the 80% rule.
If it's about 80% right, get it out the door, get it out the door, get it out the door.
That last 20% of perfection rarely wins you the business.
Now, sure, there's times where you wanna be smart.
If it's a big proposal going out the door or God's gift to the job that you're recruiting for andyou wanna make sure you're doing everything right, sure, every once in a while that makes sense.
(10:50):
But to be burdened by having everything 100% right, that's not what the champions do.
They just got a compulsion to closure and get it out the door.
The next thing, develop little rewards in the course of a day.
Do small acknowledgements for a completed task.
Let's hit a few more.
Great people who are super successful executors of the task at hand batchand do similar things at one time during the day as much as possible.
(11:21):
I'm gonna really focus in on batching your phone calls.
So let's say you're gonna do a round of BD or you're gonna do a round of recruitingfor search assignment A. That you have, the, the most important one on your desk.
One of the things that UC Berkeley has shown, and there's tons of studies about thevalue of working in time blocks and batching your time, what they preach is that focusing in on one task for 90 minutes is the highest and best way to focus in on your time.
(11:54):
And here's what their data showed out.
So let's say you're on a call block, a 90-minute call block.
The first 20 minutes, man, you're just exercising those vocal cords.
You're getting your thoughts down for how good the voicemails are thatyou're gonna leave or if you're engaging with people, the type of questions.
Just takes 20 minutes of warm-up time, kinda like a Major League ballpitcher, uh, baseball pitcher comes in and warms up before the game.
(12:19):
Then they show that there's about 50 minutes of incredibly productive time when you're in flow.
And then after that, for most people, the back 20 minutesseems to be a slight decline, but you get the idea.
Now, a couple of other institutions will share that really it's more like atwo-hour or a two-hour 10-minute total time block, but just go with the spirit here.
(12:42):
Whether it's 90 minutes or two hours and 10 minutes,somewhere in that zone, the point is batch your tasks.
Work in call blocks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, andit will blow your mind what you can get done by the end of the day.
All right.
Deadlines.
That creates accountability.
(13:04):
Another thing here is, guys, look at your ergonomics.
Think about what you can do to walk, stand up, use a headset, move around your house.
I have found that the people who do the less sitting do the morebilling, and that's because it helps to keep you in a state of flow.
I've seen people handle, top producers handle distractions in a very, very good way.
(13:27):
We get pummeled every day with voicemails, texts, chimes, pings, notifications,and let's just develop the self-discipline to not be Pavlov's dog, and every time that chime goes off, we go barking after what just came in.
Batch that stuff.
You'll be amazed at how you can strategically execute better.
(13:48):
Some of us who don't execute well tend to be way too involved with firefighting.
We live by the tyranny of the urgent.
That client who calls and says, "Hey, I got a question about this, um, fee agreement that yousent me. Really wanna work with you, but we gotta lower the percentage or extend the guarantee."
(14:10):
Or you've got a candidate calling you with some sort of a fire to fight.
Discipline yourself to fight the fire when you're ready to fight it.
We live too much by the tyranny of the urgent.
Another thing that really tends to hit us is procrastination.
For too many of us, procrastination is just socially acceptablereasons that we sell ourselves on that are really unacceptable.
(14:33):
And people who execute strategically get stuff done because they just don't procrastinate.
Focus 100% of your attention on the meeting at hand.
You're not processing emails.
You're not IMing people unless they're in on that call and you've got some backstage stuff to say.
People who are billing big have tremendous focus on thesimple thing that's right in front of them at that time.
(14:57):
Last thing I want to share with you is this.
What I have seen is a sense of urgency.
Less than 2% of the American population moves at a fast tempo in how theywalk, in how they talk, in how they manage their desk and their enterprise.
And the 2% of the people who have a fast tempo, the vast majority ofthose are the people who get stuff done, are the people who are billing big and doing well, whether they're surgeons, CPAs, or headhunters.
(15:26):
So think about that and double check your tempo.
Are you really moving at a good clip or are you just kind ofslow and easy into the everydayness of your everyday routine?
You're going to get some lift under
your wings.
Today what I wanna do is go over three mental constructswith you that deal all about strategic execution.
(00:10):
The first thing is for those of you who have momentum,how to build on that momentum for the rest of the year.
Next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about learning fromyour losses, and we're gonna t- talk about learning from your wins.
And the third and final mental construct that I want us to go over is some executive skills.
(00:33):
Now, part of your outstanding strategic execution kinda deals with getting into that flowstate, and you get into the flow state when you start enjoying what you do every day.
So I want you to remember that part of being a great headhunter andbeing a strategic executor is if you just learn to delight in the daily.
(00:56):
You will build momentum if you delight in the daily.
And how do you delight in the daily?
By being super active and thinking activity.
Also, be thinking about achievement.
Activity without achievement is like motion without progress.
It's like your back wheels spinning where you're justspinning like crazy, but you're not getting any place.
(01:21):
One of the things we need to r- realize as headhunters is that recruiting is just a lot of routine.
I got friends who are dentists.
I got friends who are lawyers.
I got friends who are CPAs, and we all bemoan the same thing.
There's so much routine and so much drudgery to what we do.
But my friends who are CPAs and surgeons and lawyers, the ones who arereally successful are the ones who are always thinking about how to get into that flow state, delighting in the daily by getting into the zone.
(01:51):
Those are my friends that I enjoy being with becausethey're looking at the routine in a very, very good way.
Now, it's really important to get in shape with delightingin the daily and keeping your routines going, and here's why.
It takes four times as much energy to put an object in motion,according to Newton, but it doesn't take that much to keep it in motion.
(02:15):
You gotta put your nose to the grindstone and your shoulder into it.
If you haven't been doing what you need to do to get into the flow state,takes four times as much energy to get it going as it does to keep it going.
That is what contributes to momentum.
One of the things I've heard from a lot of new people is that, "I just wanna make placements.
I wanna make placements.
I wanna make placements.
(02:36):
I wanna get billings out the door.
I wanna make money." And that's true.
We all feel that way.
We all feel that way.
But here's the thing, if closing placements and getting invoices out thedoor and making money- Is really, really, really your main focus, then what I'm gonna submit to you is that you are gonna live daily with discontent.
(03:00):
There's 240 working days in a year.
Assuming you didn't make more than two placements or more than one placement in a day,then that means you will live with 234 disappointing days if all that you're doing is focusing on the placements and the billings and the money that you're gonna make.
(03:24):
That's, that's a hard way to live.
So what I wanna beseech all you guys on is this (03:26):
to help build momentum, to help improve your strategic execution, keep your eyes somewhat less off that goal of billings and placements, and keep it more on refining your process in creating a fluid motion in what you're doing, improving how you submit candidates, improving how you scrub down candidates, uh, how you pitch your services to clients.
(03:55):
Get into a fluid motion there, and you're gonna find yourself being a whole lot happier.
Don't focus on the placements.
That's a byproduct of everything else going good.
You'll build momentum if you stake your daily life on whatsatisfies your soul, which is getting into that fluid movement.
Don't focus on the dopamine hits that come from when you enjoy the little distractionsthat come in your day or the momentary blip that comes from the high of making a placement.
(04:26):
That was the first mental construct.
You improve your strategic execution by building momentum, and you buildmomentum by delighting in the daily and developing these things right here.
Second thing here is let's learn and win.
You will improve how you serve the marketplace bylearning from your wins and learning from your losses.
(04:51):
Really important to understand that you need both ofthem to get into that really, really good state of flow.
So here's a few observations that I've had about great producers.
Number one, they freaking study themselves.
They will send me reports that aren't part of the Thinking Ahead s-portfolio of, of reports and self-assessments, and they just study themselves and how they've been doing, and that's so true of lots of winners.
(05:18):
Do you do that?
Learn from your past.
So the reason it's important to study yourself and be learning and tryingnew things is because of this: As we mature in the business, we lose that wonderful sense of innocence and naivete that helped us to grow.
We've lost the, the innocence and the naivete of when wewould try new things and make mistakes and learn from that.
(05:43):
So learn from our failures.
Let's try new things- And that's gonna help buildmomentum, that's gonna help with our strategic execution.
Wanna hit a couple of things about good intentions, 'cause we need to learn it's reallyimportant to understand that when you write those goals down, they are important.
(06:05):
Own it.
Please own it, because you've got to understand that just because crap gotin your way doesn't relieve you of being accountable to reach your goals.
The road to Hades is paved with good intentions.
Have you ever heard that expression?
We gotta reach down deep inside and figure out a way to make it happen, 'cause the inverse is true.
(06:29):
So you get to Hades through good intentions, and youget to good intentions th- by going through Hades.
Both work either way.
We can't soothsay ourselves and judge ourselves by our good intentions, 'cause here's the realdeal: the banks, corporate, your family, the rest of the world judges you by your results.
(06:54):
You as winners, you're learning best when you really focus in on daily results, or maybeweekly, maybe even as long as monthly, and not your good intentions, you're gonna make progress.
And your long-term sustainable ability to win is gonna come from you acceptingthat good results is external success, but getting back to that flow state makes for internal success, and that's what we want you to have, is internal s- success.
(07:26):
Placements and revenue, super-duper important, but if the dopamine hit from a placementonly is what you're looking for, then you're gonna live with a lot of discontent.
And realize that getting into that state of flow is actually gonna create joy for you.
Well, let's sashay off of these first two constructs, and I wannawrap up with some rapid-fire ideas that help with strategic execution.
(07:53):
Here are some quick ideas to help you with your execution.
Number one (07:56):
keep it simple.
Keep one thing in front of you on your desk at that moment when you're executing.
Until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction.
What's in front of me is the most important thing I need to do,and any distraction or any stimulus that comes in is a distraction.
(08:19):
Keep it simple.
Keep one thing in front of you.
So if you're building lists, if you're working a call block, if you'rescrubbing a candidate down, keep that one thing in front of you.
So ready to go to number two?
This thing could be life-changing for you.
Single handling absolutely helps out with strategic execution.
(08:41):
So one of the things I wanna encourage you to do is whatever- Stimulus comes your way, emails,which is gonna be the predominant thing, voicemails, paper that comes across your desk.
Doesn't happen so much in virtual land, happens here all the time.
Just think about this.
Think about touching it one time, and if it comes in, only openit up if it's an email if you're gonna act on it and process it.
(09:07):
Otherwise, if you don't know who it's from or you don't really know whatit's about, let it sit until you can batch answering all of your emails.
Now, I know there's a big desire to go touch everything, you know,and then decide, "Do I need to act on this?" Don't even do that.
Whatever-- whenever you touch something, touch it one time.
(09:27):
It can save people 80 hours annually if they adopt the habit of single handling.
Let me tell you what that means for you.
If you make 200,000 a year as a headhunter, and you get to claim back 80 hours of your time,that means you're gonna make 8,000 more dollars because you're not touching stuff more than once.
(09:53):
8,000 bucks is a chunk of change.
Would you agree?
One of the other things that I've seen is a compulsion to closure.
It just means they're just naturally wired to get itdone, get it done, get it done, get it done, get it done.
Some of us who are perfectionistic spend so much time trying to get that last 20% of somethingexactly right, a proposal going out the door, an email, a candidate write-up, whatever, and trying to get that last 20% just exactly perfect has been proven to not be worth it.
(10:26):
It's much better to use the 80% rule.
If it's about 80% right, get it out the door, get it out the door, get it out the door.
That last 20% of perfection rarely wins you the business.
Now, sure, there's times where you wanna be smart.
If it's a big proposal going out the door or God's gift to the job that you're recruiting for andyou wanna make sure you're doing everything right, sure, every once in a while that makes sense.
(10:50):
But to be burdened by having everything 100% right, that's not what the champions do.
They just got a compulsion to closure and get it out the door.
The next thing, develop little rewards in the course of a day.
Do small acknowledgements for a completed task.
Let's hit a few more.
Great people who are super successful executors of the task at hand batchand do similar things at one time during the day as much as possible.
(11:21):
I'm gonna really focus in on batching your phone calls.
So let's say you're gonna do a round of BD or you're gonna do a round of recruitingfor search assignment A. That you have, the, the most important one on your desk.
One of the things that UC Berkeley has shown, and there's tons of studies about thevalue of working in time blocks and batching your time, what they preach is that focusing in on one task for 90 minutes is the highest and best way to focus in on your time.
(11:54):
And here's what their data showed out.
So let's say you're on a call block, a 90-minute call block.
The first 20 minutes, man, you're just exercising those vocal cords.
You're getting your thoughts down for how good the voicemails are thatyou're gonna leave or if you're engaging with people, the type of questions.
Just takes 20 minutes of warm-up time, kinda like a Major League ballpitcher, uh, baseball pitcher comes in and warms up before the game.
(12:19):
Then they show that there's about 50 minutes of incredibly productive time when you're in flow.
And then after that, for most people, the back 20 minutesseems to be a slight decline, but you get the idea.
Now, a couple of other institutions will share that really it's more like atwo-hour or a two-hour 10-minute total time block, but just go with the spirit here.
(12:42):
Whether it's 90 minutes or two hours and 10 minutes,somewhere in that zone, the point is batch your tasks.
Work in call blocks, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, andit will blow your mind what you can get done by the end of the day.
All right.
Deadlines.
That creates accountability.
(13:04):
Another thing here is, guys, look at your ergonomics.
Think about what you can do to walk, stand up, use a headset, move around your house.
I have found that the people who do the less sitting do the morebilling, and that's because it helps to keep you in a state of flow.
I've seen people handle, top producers handle distractions in a very, very good way.
(13:27):
We get pummeled every day with voicemails, texts, chimes, pings, notifications,and let's just develop the self-discipline to not be Pavlov's dog, and every time that chime goes off, we go barking after what just came in.
Batch that stuff.
You'll be amazed at how you can strategically execute better.
(13:48):
Some of us who don't execute well tend to be way too involved with firefighting.
We live by the tyranny of the urgent.
That client who calls and says, "Hey, I got a question about this, um, fee agreement that yousent me. Really wanna work with you, but we gotta lower the percentage or extend the guarantee."
(14:10):
Or you've got a candidate calling you with some sort of a fire to fight.
Discipline yourself to fight the fire when you're ready to fight it.
We live too much by the tyranny of the urgent.
Another thing that really tends to hit us is procrastination.
For too many of us, procrastination is just socially acceptablereasons that we sell ourselves on that are really unacceptable.
(14:33):
And people who execute strategically get stuff done because they just don't procrastinate.
Focus 100% of your attention on the meeting at hand.
You're not processing emails.
You're not IMing people unless they're in on that call and you've got some backstage stuff to say.
People who are billing big have tremendous focus on thesimple thing that's right in front of them at that time.
(14:57):
Last thing I want to share with you is this.
What I have seen is a sense of urgency.
Less than 2% of the American population moves at a fast tempo in how theywalk, in how they talk, in how they manage their desk and their enterprise.
And the 2% of the people who have a fast tempo, the vast majority ofthose are the people who get stuff done, are the people who are billing big and doing well, whether they're surgeons, CPAs, or headhunters.
(15:26):
So think about that and double check your tempo.
Are you really moving at a good clip or are you just kind ofslow and easy into the everydayness of your everyday routine?
You're going to get some lift under
your wings.
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