[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: The podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to.
[00:00:14] Speaker C: Write their story instead of having others.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney, and I'm your host.
[00:00:21] Speaker C: Today's guest is Andrew Beaulieu. As a husband, father to two young daughters, and former vice president of his family's construction business, Andrew intimately knows the daily pressures of corporate success and being.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Present for your family.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: As someone who worked over the course of 16 years to climb the corporate ladder and made the necessary personal sacrifices that come with that, only to realize that once he achieved his goals and had all the traditional metrics of success, that Andrew was not fulfilled, he learned a few things. Success and fulfillment are not always the same thing.
Just because you are good at something doesn't mean that's what you should be doing. It's the small things in life that really matter. Andrew left his family business. He wanted to be more present at home for his daughters. He wanted to be a present husband, and he wanted to recreate his relationship with his career. Andrew is now the CEO and founder of Bold Moves Coaching and Consulting, where his mission is clear. To help executives achieve work life harmony. To be present for their families without sacrificing their professional ambitions. Through personal coaching and strategic consulting, Andrew partners with amazing entrepreneurs who are feeling stuck and don't know how to show up for themselves, their families, and their teams. Enjoy the show.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Andrew, good to see you.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Nice to see you, Drew.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: And I love your name because I'm an Andrew, too. I just happen to go by Jerusalem, though, so. Good name.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah. My siblings always told me I couldn't pull off Drew. They'll call me Andy, but they're like, you can't pull off Drew. Drew's like a tough guy name. They always associate. You're not rugged enough or tough enough to be a Drew.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Tough guy. That's pretty funny. My dad was Andy.
[00:02:07] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. Okay. So it's for you. It's a generational name.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm an Andrew Jr, but okay. When it came to naming our first son, instead of doing Andrew iii, because I ended up going to doctor's offices and they would pull the wrong chart. They pull my dad's chart and ask me if I'm in Medicare. Medicare, no. So we did. We did. Gave a Matthew. We did Anders the middle name.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: So there you go.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: So I always like to thank the person or people who introduced my me to my guests. And here you and I met through a networking group called Shared Connections, led by Jeff Lord Drew Casaccio and Chris Pry. So I want to thank, thank those three gentlemen for, you know, indirectly introducing us and the way they run the event. You and I were able to, to get to meet and, and we are meeting for a reason. It's bigger, that's bigger than just ourselves, which led to me wanting to have you on.
So why are you here?
I often say that, know when we're young, Andrew, we're taught that life is linear from our friends, our family, anybody close to us. And it's not a malicious message or teaching. They want it to happen. And for the most part, you know, they want us to do A plus B plus C and they say D is going to happen. And for the most part, life is linear until it's not.
So that external circumstance presents itself and we have a choice and we either make that choice or we don't see that choice. But that external circumstance gets in the middle of one of those letters and our life now goes from linear to circuitous.
I also also often say that I believe there's three types of men and we can be all three of these men in the same day. It just depends on what our level of self awareness is that day. And I believe man. There's a man number one. He's the man who has ton of blind spots. He doesn't see anything except what's in front of him. And he lives his life with the belief system of the world and himself. That was kind of given to him by the time he was from 7 to 18 years old. He doesn't change anything. And on his deathbed he's got a ton of regrets, Andrew.
Then there's man number two. Man number two sees the external circumstances. He's got a little higher self awareness than man number one, yet that external circumstance for him is a barrier because he's the victim. Everybody and everything else is to blame. Life is doing this to him. He says, I can't change anything. I got no control is what it is. And he stays the same route. On his deathbed, he's got regrets. He's got more regrets than number one because he says, I saw this and I didn't do anything about it.
Right? And then there's man number three.
That's you, that's me, it's the man I have on this show. He's the man who has a higher self awareness than number two and wants to do something about his life. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, wants to change it. And so that same external circumstance where man Number two saw it as a barrier. Man number three sees it as an opportunity to become a different person, to do something differently. And he takes control and he says he acts differently on it and he becomes a different person, a better person.
So I'd like you to reach back as far as you need to reach, as big or small as you think it is, personal or professional. That defining moment that helped you move from man number one to man number three or man number two to man number three and help you become the Andrew Bolior you are now.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: There are so many things running through my head and thank you for that, you know, real description of each man and I. And to your point, I, I've been all three at one point in time.
Two and three definitely resonate depending on the situation and my preparedness to attack the situation.
I'm the youngest of four siblings and so growing up I had a really unique position within the family to observe what was going on around me and the social construct that my family had built.
And you know, I, I'm toying with this. It's not a specific memory, it's more of my childhood in general, of just seeing how my siblings were being raised and how they, their interactions with my parents and their friends and kind of picking and choosing what I liked and I didn't like through their blind spots.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:06:49] Speaker A: I was kind of seeing it through a different lens but ultimately it was meeting my wife. So my wife and I have been together 21 years.
For a high school sweetheart, she's my, I would say my first serious girlfriend. I had girlfriends prior, but she was really my first romantic relationship and, and she was an only child in her family, very tight knit group, just her and her two parents and she would bring kind of awareness to my blind spots. A social family, generational grooming, if you will. Of. Do you notice your family does this where other families do this?
There are certain, you know, every family has their, has their. We'll have our. And we all do. And it was through kind of being with my wife, my girlfriend at the time and kind of having that outside view looking in that it really brought awareness to if I continue down a certain path, I'm not going to go in. In the right direction.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay. And she wasn't saying it was good or bad. It was just different.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: It was just different from what she knew perspective.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Something different. Right.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Well, you know, we were on and off for the first few years of our relationship and often one of the sticking points with my family because there was a bit Of a power struggle, if I'm honest, where my parents were very controlling. They really wanted to have their, their hands on the reins. And my wife wanted more of me, my girlfriend wanted more of me. It's normal in teenagehood that they say, I want to spend more time with you, I want to maybe go downtown with you. I want to do other things. And my parents are like, no, you can't do that. It's not okay. We're scared that you, you know, you might get her pregnant. We're scared this, we're scared that living through fear rather than trust.
[00:08:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Which is a, is a, is a typical parent habit.
And so we were on and off the first few years, but it was that I, I always knew there was something there. So I always fought for the relationship. And by fighting for the relationship, it kind of gave me a little bit of gap between my family and it forced me to put in boundaries.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: And those boundaries are what protected me from those blind spots. It's what allowed me to look back afterwards and say, I'm really happy I did that. Because it's allowed me to build relationships, healthy relationships outside of the family dynamic. And I still see like my, I'm. I would say I'm the black sheep of the family in a certain sense. Like I'm a I. And we'll probably get into it. But me leading the family business later in life, you know, I was the first one to get married. I was not the first one. I have kids. I was the second one. I have kids. But I, I kind of set certain trends in place that the rest of the family was always kind of judgmental on saying, like, well, why are you doing that? That's not what we do. I was like, well, it's not a we, it's an I. It's my life.
And I think that's, that's my evolution from going from number man number one to man number two. Okay, Got it.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Makes sense. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. Boundaries. Very, very important. Many of us miss that.
I missed the boundary between my mother and my ex wife. My wife at the time.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:10:04] Speaker B: Not, not healthy to not have that, that, that boundary. I also didn't have a boundary between my self identity and being people pleasing.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: That's a big one.
[00:10:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And I love what you said about an audience. Think about the difference between living in fear or living in trust.
Just what it does to your body. Right. The nervous system. Living in fear versus living in trust. And then you say to somebody, are you a risk taker? Well, if you live in fear. You're not a risk taker. If you live in trust, you're a risk take. And there's different types of risks, right? There's calculated risks, but people who live in fear don't even take calculated risks. And you miss out on so much in life. And you're right, most parents are afraid that they're going to mess up with their kid, so they err on the side of being cautious. Don't do this, don't do that.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: You know, so you create what you, you create what you fear, right?
[00:11:06] Speaker B: You do, you do. And when you protect someone too much, they're not going to take risks. They live in a bubble and that's not the real life. And when the bubble pops and you don't know what to do, that's when you know what hits the fan, right? Yeah, exactly. So thank you for sharing that. So ultimately, at some point then, you did marry your high school sweetheart, correct?
[00:11:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: And tell me how different it was, dating versus now it's marriage. Did anything change in terms of how you treated each other?
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Well, that's a really interesting question. We've been married 12 years now.
I mean, going from 16. We got married when I was 25, she was 24.
I mean, just that evolution in age and maturity, the dynamics of our relationship definitely changed when we were young. We were. I was very reserved. I didn't talk back. I was never allowed to talk back in my house. It was always just do what you're told and keep quiet. And so when we would get into fights as teenagers, it was. My wife was kind of like trying to pull something out of me and I just shut down. I was just, no, I'm not going to fight you.
I'm not necessarily gonna do what you're asking me to do, but I'm not gonna fight you. And eventually it took my, actually my grandfather passing. Um, I was in such an emotional swirls, very close to my grandfather and in an argument with my wife, I kind of just eventually just found my voice. And we both recall that day very vividly. She's like, that was the day you found your voice.
And it allowed us from that point on. So that was probably around early 20s. From that day on, we were able to build our communication from a place of respect and common ground. So we, we can disagree with each other, but there's always going to be respect on the table.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: And I would say the strongest point of our relationship is our communication. Despite the situation happening around us, we're able just to Talk, not fight necessarily. We can dispute, but we're not fighting.
But that comes with maturity. That came with a little bit of experience.
So the biggest change from dating to marriage was that in it was happened at the same time that we were coming together and moving out on our own for the first time. I think we moved out not even a year before we got married. We were engaged, but we weren't married. So it was really like a transition of being together versus physically building a home and a family and a life together and building our own little nucleus.
So, yeah, that was a really exciting time. Really?
[00:13:53] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. So moving to where you are now professionally lead us through leaving the family business because I know that was a big defining moment and, and how that affected your relationship with your family and where you are now. So let's hear some professional stuff.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So I left the family business last year after 16 years with a family business. So we worked in general contracting here in Canada. And I, my father founded the company from our dining room table when I was seven years old. And I never wanted to work in the family business, but after college I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I said I got to make some money for the summer and went to work there and I was there for 16 years.
That evolution, my again, my father being a traditional man, you got your name in the door because your last name, but everything from here on, you have to earn, you have to earn your keep, you have to earn your stripes, you have to earn an experience. And you know, my father's partner who was a non family member, is a 5050 ownership.
When he became my partner, when my dad finally retired to me, my two brothers took his, his shares.
He always told us, he's like, he was harder on you than he was on anybody else. But you know what, that there's a fond appreciation that comes with that. Now in hindsight, didn't feel good in the moment, but in hindsight I respect that because it taught me discipline, it taught me to be focused on goals, it taught me to work hard. And you're right, nothing is given in life. You have to work for everything, whether it be personal or professional. You got to earn it.
So really building that relationship with my father when he was in the company was very strong, but it was a very transactional relationship.
It was always based on work. There was no boundary established outside of work. The work came home with him wherever he want. It was his identity.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: And I think generationally that was appropriate.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: My siblings And I have a great relationship. We, you know, we grew through the company together. My sister's a nurse, so I'll leave her aside for the moment.
But my two brothers and I, we worked through the company, we grew through the company, we went through the same experiences. And those commonalities, those common experiences obviously brought us together.
When I was leaving the business, I gave them a two year notice that I was leaving and that we would make sure the legacy of the company was in good position. And professionally speaking, everyone will be okay upon my exit because I was a key player in the company and they were very supportive. I mean they went through the seven emotions. There was some anger, there was some resentment and guilt and all that kind of stuff. But on the other side, now, nine months later, ten months later, I would say the relationships are starting to forge again on a more personal basis. It's no longer all fueled by work. There is some personal there, it's super important. And that was one of my. There was many decisions. There's many factors of why I left the family business. Some of it, I would say the big if I'm thinking of an onion, the outer layer of the onion was my just my own personal itch to find my own identity, find my own road and, and challenge myself in, in new ways. But part of it was to kind of preserve some family relationships that wasn't based on business.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely right.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: And I think that's a healthy, healthy thing to want. In some circumstances it worked and others, like my father, didn't work.
And it is what it is. But sorry, I don't know if I answered your question very well.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Absolutely.
So tell us about what you're doing now that you left the business, what you go into.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: So I went into coaching and consulting. So this all stems from. I had a coach when we were doing the change management at the company, the company hired a change management coach for me and my two brothers to get ready to become owners. And this woman absolutely changed my life. She tapped into something in me and this was one of those miles critical milestones in my life. So like I mentioned, meeting my, my wife, girlfriend, 16 was huge. This was another TSN turning point, if you will, where she tapped into something to me that just allowed me to step out of my shell.
You know, people used to tell me within the company, even though I was a director at this point, they said you still hide in the shadows of your brothers and we see so much potential in you because we really are like, we look the same, but we're very different personalities.
And they're like, you have so much potential, but you just hide in the shadow of your brothers. And about six months in working with this coach, they said, your brothers aren't even in your rearview mirror anymore. They're like, you've just taken off. And it coincided with me also becoming a parent.
I was becoming a father at the very same time. And I think those two things tapped in at the same time. Just brought in soft skills, a tremendous amount of soft skills. I knew how to do the job, but it was really dealing with people that mattered the most.
And so when the pandemic hit and I came home and my kids were three and two at the time. I had two daughters. Three were three and two at the time. You know, I realized I was spending way too much time away from my family. I was spending 60, 70 hours a week outside the home, and that was never the father that I wanted to be. My dad was like that. So my dad started a company, and he was gone all the time. So he said, I'm not going to make, you know, repeat that mistake.
And being aware of blind spots. Right. So that was one that I was cognizant of and didn't want to repeat that. But I was. For the first three years of my oldest daughter's life, I wasn't around.
It wasn't malicious. It was just I was on autopilot.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: And the pandemic allowed me a reflection to look back and say, this isn't the kind of parent I want to be. And there's an opportunity here for me to maybe do something else in my life. And so what do I want to do? And I remembered my coach and how she helped me in the soft skills I developed and the fact that I'm really good at making connections with people and building relationships and helping them through challenges, both professionally and personally. In life, as a leader in an organization that is your number, number one role is to take of care of the people in your care, in your charge. And so I said, if I could even help one person, that level of fulfillment must feel so outrageously good. I'm going to dedicate my career to this. And so that's how I did it. I, I, I actually resigned from the family business before coming to that realization, because I realized I needed to cut off the safety net for me to even go into that exploratory mode. And so I told them, I said, I'm resigning. They said, for what? I don't know, but I know it's not this.
And I'M going to give you guys two years notice so that actually they requested it. I offered them 12 months. They said, can we have 24? I said, Absolutely. I said, it's only fair. It gives me time to figure it out. And worked out, because I ended up going through a coach certification process that was 12 months. Give me time to start the base of my business while working full time. So I was still able to provide for my family.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: But, you know, I was more present at home because we're still navigating through the pandemic and we're coming in the tail end, so there's still a lot of working from home. So my presence at home was felt, and I was seeing the benefits of being homeowner.
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
So what, what is the biggest lesson you learned when you left the family business?
[00:21:23] Speaker A: The thing that comes to mind, Drew, is when I finally told the staff, because they were the last ones to find out that I was leaving, their first question was, what?
But when I said, this is what I'm gonna go do, they said, oh, you gotta go do that.
We can see it, Andrew. And, and so the moment I told every single one of them, and we had a staff of 70 people across Canada, when we finally told all 70 people, every single one of them showed me love, support, encouragement, respect.
What I was doing was bold.
And so I earned, you know, additional respect in their books in that mark, in that regard. And so what the lesson I learned from doing that is when you're, when you're authentic, when you just lean into who you are as a person and really just say, like, I'm not here to impress anybody else but myself. I'm here to live my life under my terms. And you live into that.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: People are going to embrace it. Yeah. And they're going to celebrate you for it. The, the, the celebration that I got when I left still gives me tingles today. I, I, it really gives me goosebumps. It was a standing ovation. There was gifts and speeches and video montages sent in videos and handwritten letters and subcontractors did. It was a celebration of an end of an era. And there was not a single person that ever looked me in the eye and say, I can't believe you're abandoning us or leaving us or. There was none of that. Not a single thing.
And so that's a lesson learned. Saying it's, it was scary. It was a hard, hard, emotionally challenging phase of my life. And still to this day. But I, it was. I was myself. I was Myself and that paid off dividends big time.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Beautiful. Love it. Well, you know, with that you mentioned the word bold and your audience certainly has captured the essence of Andrew Bolliere and they're going to want to get in touch with you.
So folks, here's a way of getting in touch with Andrew and the word bold and now I know why it's in here. Bold moves. Coaching ca. So go to, go to Andrew's website and learn a lot about him and they could. Can they schedule something with you through the website too? Okay.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Or something. Okay. And also his LinkedIn. Go to LinkedIn. There are not many Andrew Bulliers when you put his name in. So you'll find him. Good way to connect.
Well, I have two questions Andrew I'd like to ask you before we sign off.
First one is going to give you the opportunity to use your imagination.
You're sitting down with 7 to 10 year old Andrew and you want to give him advice about life.
What are you going to tell him?
[00:24:26] Speaker A: Oh, seven to ten year old me.
So impressionable at that age.
No matter how hard things seem, no matter how hard or challenging life gets, just make sure you're always having fun.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: Love that. Don't lose that inner child when they say you're an adult.
[00:24:52] Speaker A: You need to enjoy what you're doing and you need to enjoy what you're doing and who you're doing it with. Oh my gosh. We're never too old to have fun. Yeah, I would just make sure whatever you choose to do in life, just make sure you're enjoying it.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Love it. All right, so switch hats now. Now you're sitting with young Andrew, the young businessman entrepreneur and you want to give him advice about business.
What are you going to tell him?
[00:25:17] Speaker A: I'm going to tell him something he learned fairly quickly, but I think I would say it anyways. His business is about people.
It's all about people. Invest in yourself and invest in people and the rest will take care of itself.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Love that. Absolutely. Well, Andrew, I want to thank you for a couple things for being here and also for coming into my life being a friend and.
And you know, keep doing what you're doing. You're a great human being and you're providing value for others that your coach provided you. So keep doing what you're doing, man. You're doing great things.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Thanks. True, man. I super appreciate being on your show and absolutely just being part of your life and yeah, this is all good. Thanks, man.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. It's my pleasure. Everybody out there, please take care of yourselves.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review. To help others find it.
I'd like you to answer this question Question Are you living the life you want to live, or are you living the life others want you to live? I'd like you to think about that for a second, because I strongly suggest you live the life you want to live. If you want to learn more about what I stand for and my services and how I'm able to help many men get out of their own way, please go to my website at www.posprophetcompassion.com.
feel free to also email me at
[email protected]. i'd love to have a conversation with you. Take care of yourself and choose to write your own story instead of letting others write it for.
