Fast Five for Friday: The Wake-Up Call That Changes Everything

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation Podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop.

0:46 Dude. What's going on? This is technically a fast five for Friday, and we're going to break this motherfucker right out of the gates here. It is going to be fast. It is going to drop on Friday, but we're not going to do our typical routine here, mainly because, you know, we both have kind of. had a topic on our hearts and it's one that we just didn't, honestly, we didn't want to wait for, uh, we'll go more in depth on it, but, um, You know, I caught... And Brooke, I want you to kind of give some context for, you know, some of what you've been experiencing recently.

1:28 But when I knew that this is exactly what we needed to talk about today, I've been thinking about it as well. And then I want to give a shout out to Ed Milet, who I listened to this morning, who presented this concept of QTR, which he, you know, terms quality time remaining. Yeah. And I mean, the idea of how much time do we really have left and how are we using it and all of that kind of stuff is, of course, not new. I love the way that he coined the phrase. So, you know, total due credit to him for that. But it just really got me thinking about how passe we get and how casual we get and about life, about our goals, about the moments, about the way that we spend time.

2:18 So, anyhow, I just wanted to bring that to the table today and talk through it a little bit, maybe even preframe a bigger episode on this topic. But, dude, share a little bit about, if you don't mind, I'm putting you on the spot here. Share a little bit about what you've been kind of experiencing because it's definitely been something that has impacted all of us through you. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a very polarizing week to say the least, right? And just kind of coming to terms with life being, you know, not forever, I guess would be the best way to say it.

2:59 You know, knowing that there is a dynamic of like, we're going to die one day. Like that's a real piece of the puzzle. So this last weekend found out that my, my dad has a stage four cancer and it was one of those pieces where it was fascinating, dude. Like literally when my dad texted me, he just goes, Hey, can you, can you give me a call? Um, and I literally out loud said, huh, my dad's got cancer. And the thing that was wild is I didn't know he had even gone for a doctor's checkup. I had no context of it. It was just like this intuitive thunderbolt that just hit where it was like, Oh, yeah. Here's what's going down. And sure enough, that's that's what the conversation, you know, spiraled into.

3:43 And it's been really wild, dude, because the I think the mass majority of us as humanity, we live in a groundhog day kind of a world. Yeah. Yep. Where our beliefs drive our patterns. And yesterday doesn't look a whole hell of a lot different than what today looks like. And tomorrow looks very similar, you know, from the foods we eat to the activities we do to how we treat our loved ones to the bed we sleep in and how we sleep, how we brush our teeth. I mean, if we look at the majority of humanity, most people are on their own version of autopilot and it's like the same thing day in and day out. Yeah. And to contrast that, so here I'm getting that, seeing that side of the house.

4:23 And it was very wild too, because I knew my father's pattern, which is when life gets hard, he either bows out or he walks away or he gives up or he throws in the towel. It's already new with that conversation, which was going to be, which was, I'm not going to fight. I mean, I'm not the disease. I'm not going to fight to save my life. I'm not going to try and fight to get healthy. So there was this really interesting deal. And I almost kind of had like this observer observing moment. of like, I didn't get emotional because I already knew the pattern. And yes, I've had emotions for my own selfish reasons of, you know, losing my dad. Contrast that on the other side of the house this week was just an executive meeting with Tony Robbins and his whole team because we're doing some stuff for Tony.

5:12 And here's the crazy part. Tony and my dad are the exact same age. And that meeting with Tony... Tony's there and he's going, how can I leave a legacy of impact? How can I feed his big goal in the conversation yesterday was how can we feed 2 billion starting people? Like, what would it take to do that in the next 12 months? And he's meeting with like literally the heads of state for all countries in the Middle East. And what a lot of people don't know is the war in Ukraine. The biggest impact that's having is the fertilizer from Russia is not getting those other countries. That's the biggest thing. Wow.

5:52 And what a lot of people are not aware of, there's 11 countries, 11 countries that are on the verge of starvation because of that fertilizer. And no one's talking about that side. They're all talking about, you know, the politis, the politis, the politicization, politicization, politicization, whatever. I'll call your mom. Ryan's mom got nothing for that one. My new word. Politicization, I think. Sure. That works. Yeah, whatever. We'll go with that. You know what I'm saying. Yeah. Roll with it. I'm tracking. I'm tracking. I'm tracking. But then you see somebody who's like Tony, who's staying up until four in the morning, trying to solve this unsurmountable problem, like running into the storm, trying to solve stuff and create a legacy.

6:39 It was like, dude, the contrast of like our life is fleeting, our beliefs and our purpose drives our behavior. And holy shit, have we been playing small? Like that was my biggest takeaway this week. I'm like, I'm so fucking done playing small. Yeah, I, I, I want to, I mean, that, that in and of itself is, is, is a big one. And I think that it's one of the biggest reasons why too, I really appreciate the opportunity to spend time around people that, you know, that are further down the road than we are. that have done things that are more grandiose than we are, or than we have yet.

7:20 Because you get to see, I mean, it's all, it's all in context, right? If, if, if you're, if we use temperature as, as an, you know, as, as the analogy here and you're like a 75 degree or, and you hang out with a bunch of 75 degrees all the time, your temperature never changes. But the more time that you spend around a 90, 95 degree person or a group of 90 to 95 degree people, your temperature starts to go up slowly but surely. And I think it is such a realization that it's kind of like when we think about and look around the world at large and all the quote unquote problems that we think we have – Um, same thing.

8:09 I'm with you. I want to ask you something. Um, cause I, I, I have a, I have a lot that I'd love to dig in on, on this, but I think what we're going to do is just make this a little, a little bite size, uh, nugget to lead into, uh, the next full length episode that we do together. But when, when you, uh, What were some of the internal decisions that you made for yourself when you, or realizations, however you want to, you know, look at it, when you found out about your dad? You know, it was, uh, one, well, first thing, the health component, right?

8:55 Cause it is, it was really interesting because my, my relationship with my dad has been kind of distant for years. very, very long time. Um, the hardest part for me actually was letting my kids know. Yeah. Um, and part of this is I, I've kind of been anticipating that health wouldn't be good. And I think I've been prepared for it for probably a couple of years. Um, there's, there's this piece of having to let my kids know or having my kids feel pain or that feeling of loss or, uh, Yeah, you know, it's really wild because there's this concept of pain is very different than suffering. And so I made a commitment a long time ago to not suffer when there's loss.

9:40 Like feeling the pain, yes, I totally am allowed to feel the pain. The pain is real, but suffering is a choice. And so I made a declaration as soon as I got off the phone with my dad, I made the declaration of I'm not going to suffer pain. And I will allow the pain to happen. I know he's in pain. And more than anything is I don't want him to suffer. The hard part is I can't control that. Right. True. Yep. So big distinction for me was like, how can I help him not spiral into suffering and doing my best to help in essence, more or less coach him through it? And just being there rather than trying to control. Because you know me. I like to control.

10:20 And so that's been the... There's been a huge element of surrender. And also, yeah, I'm making that declaration and that choice that I am not going to suffer in this thing. And I'm going to do whatever I can to help him choose not to suffer. I so appreciate that perspective because that goes right back to the idea of, you know, what time do we have remaining and what is the experience that we want to have? I think, you know, at its core, this really goes back to the fact that, I mean, number one, it just gets too easy for any of us. And this is like this is human condition. it's too easy for any of us to just kind of sleepwalk our way through life where each day is just kind of like the next, you know, we, we eat the same foods most of the time.

11:08 We kind of do the same things. Most of the time we hang out with the same people most of the time. And I also think that we have a tendency to, um, I think we have a tendency to create mental frameworks and constructs that are around that, you know, where we have a frame of the way that we view what's possible, what's not possible, what we can have, what we can't have. And I think that generally speaking, that so informs a person's I mean, the way that a person shows up and their belief about whether or not they control their experience in this life or whether external forces control their experience in this life.

11:56 And a great example is exactly what you just shared. You could choose. I mean, most people would. choose to just suffer, to go through it, to be angry at the world, to, you know, be angry at your dad, uh, for maybe not a closer relationship, you know, um, whatever, but your, your, your choice now informs the way that you experienced the time that you have left. And I love that, man. I, I, I think, um, it's very, uh, very wise and, and, uh, and honestly, I'm just, I'm, I'm glad for your family that you made that choice because that's the other part is that when we think about the time that we have, whatever it is, it's not just about us, but it's about the people that are around us and what they're going to experience as a result of the way that we're showing up.

12:48 Well said. Something so simple within it. And you know me and you know my calendar. But like something that was probably the hardest thing for me to do. Like I'm taking tomorrow off. You are. Anybody that knows my calendar is like, what? You know, Vanessa is even like putting out the word to all of our team members, like, do not respond to Brooke if he tries to reach out to you. He is not allowed to do anything. You're cut off. that there's those pieces. It's like, okay, what, what's this all about? Why are we actually here? What is our purpose? Like, let's, let's dig deeper. Let's get more on track. Let's get more in alignment with doing big shit. Let's help more people. Let's like, there, there's so much that we can bring to, to the party.

13:33 And it's really easy for so many of us to get comfortable and just get in our, I don't even want to call it getting in a rut. Cause I don't even know if that's what people get into. I think they just get into a pack. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. It just, it requires that fire in the belly to go, you know what? I am built for more. I am here for a purpose. I am here to help more people. I am here to bring my gifts. And actually, it was funny, dude. Tony mentioned something yesterday that Jim Rohn had shared with him when he was 18 years old. He said, your gifts will make room for you. And I was like... that's pretty dope.

14:14 So yeah, man, that's a, I think it's time for all of us to really check in and go, okay, it's time to make room for my gifts to open these doors and let's, let's bring ourselves to the people who need us. That's a beautiful way to put a bow on this one. And listen, the, the commitment that, that we'll make, I, we, we opened up a big can of worms here that we don't have the time to fully unpack. And so I, The next episode that we're going to do together is we'll dive deep on how to maximize whatever time we have left. Because that's the thing, you guys. Nobody wants to talk about it. But we all have an expiration date. And none of us know exactly what it is.

14:55 None of us. Um, and it's different for everybody. And so we really do have to get serious and intentional about it. And it isn't just about hard. Yes, it is. It's definitely about going out and achieving and being, you know, becoming all that you can become. But it's also about in the, in the course of that, being willing to do what you're doing tomorrow. Take a fucking day off. you know, enjoy your family, catalog and be appreciative of, you know, those key moments. So with all that said, I'm going to just keep going if I keep going. So we're going to shut it down. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation podcast. And until next time, take care.

15:38 Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you got value out of this episode, we would be so grateful if you would share it out with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes or your favorite platform. To learn more about Empire Partners or to inquire about working with Ryan and Brooke, please visit www.empirepartners.io forward slash go. .