From Performance to Mastery: Jairek Robbins’ Secrets to Coaching Success

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 to episode 10 of the Coaching Equation podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-host and co-founder, Brooke Bishop. And today's guest is none other than the incredible Jarek Robbins. Jerick is a world-renowned performance coach and speaker with over two decades of experience guiding teams and individuals to achieve exceptional results in life and business. His impactful approach has benefited clients, including major organizations like Ameriprise Financial, Harvard University, the U.S. Air Force, as well as sports teams like the Tampa Bay Rays. Jarek is a bestselling author. His book, Live It, has been praised by thought leaders like Deepak Chopra for its practical methods to infuse life with meaning while attaining great success.

1:30 His early dedication to improving human potential was recognized with a Congressional Award gold medal, celebrating his extensive community service and professional development achievements. Now, guys, in this episode, this one is chock full of so much goodness. Jarek has got such an incredible background in coaching, and we start at the very beginning from zero coaching clients to 50 clients, from looking at how to double down and guarantee results for your clients instead of being wishy-washy. We talk about how he grew a coaching practice to truly global, 133 different countries.

2:12 One of the things that I love that we really dig into in this episode as well is true business. It's about business, business development, business acumen, learning the things that make you not just a great coach, but a great business owner. And you're going to get all of this from one of the most decorated and respected voices in the coaching industry today. Buckle up for episode 10 of the Coaching Equation podcast with Jarek Robbins. Welcome back to the Coaching Equation podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Lang, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. Special guest in the house today, Jarek Robbins. So excited to have you here, brother.

2:54 It's good to be here. you have a podcast voice. I didn't know if I was supposed to like have a podcast voice too, to start it off. Dude, that was pretty good. I like that. But now I kind of want you to do the rest of the episode in that voice. It's not possible. Definitely not going to be able to hang it for the whole episode. That was a small cameo. It's gone. It was all you got. It was all you got. Now, this is going to be a whole lot of fun. Before we dive all the way in, you know, Brooke, you guys obviously have a history and I'd love for you to introduce that a little bit before we kind of dive into the meat. Yeah, I'm super pumped to have you here, Jarek, just because, yeah, number one, I know how amazing of a human being you are, not just in the world of business and the transformation for coaches across the globe, but really just as a husband, as a father.

3:40 And you and I've got, yeah, we've got history and we go way back. I was actually thinking about before we jumped on, I'm Holy crap. I think I've known you close to 18 years now is when we first met. I don't know if you remember the first time we met and I don't even know how the heck it happened, but I don't remember this. You were working as an FSR for your dad at that point in time, traveling all over the country, doing presentations and rocking and rolling. But I don't remember this. Do you remember when rain and I picked you up from the airport when you came back to San Diego? It was like, I remember rain and I were driving. She's like, wait, what are we doing? I'm like, oh, we're picking up Tony's son. We're taking him home. He's just getting off the airport. They didn't arrange And I remember she's like, what the hell? Like she totally blew her mind. She had like full celebrity starstruck when like that whole experience of things.

4:23 But yeah, dude, I feel blessed because I've gotten to know you for so long and I've gotten to see the impact of what you've created. We've also gotten to work on a number of projects with like Success Magazine and some other different things over time. I'm just pumped today to just have you get to share with our world, with our audience, um, just the stuff you're doing, as well as the transformational pieces that you bring to the table. So yeah, I'm pumped to have you here. And I'd love to hear just how you got to this space with Performance Coach University and just how that came about and how that came into your orbit and how you've built this thing. And just share with us just how that all came into play. Sure. So PZU came about because I had built my own coaching practice and there was a bunch of people who kept reaching out to me saying, I want to do what you do.

5:08 And they were like, how did you get there? What do I need to go learn? Or what do I need to do to be able to do that? And I sat down and I was like, well, my degree's in psychology. I've spent a lifetime going to seminars and events and reading thousands of books and taking hundreds of programs. And I started adding it up and stacking it all together. And I was like, well, I can just give you the list of what I did and you can go do it for 18 years and then you'll be in the same spot I am. And they looked at me and the look on their face was like, are you crazy? I might have spent 18 years doing this. I was like, well, I spent at least the last 15 years doing this.

5:50 So what do you expect me to tell you? That's what it took to get there. And they're like, well, can you summarize it? Can you give me the most important stuff? I was like, I don't know. Some of that comes through experience. I can tell you the tool, but unless you've been through a moment of life having to use it, I don't know how to sum that up for you. I have to kind of put you in the fire so you have the actual experience. Then you go like, ah, now I know why you never leave that part out. Or ooh, now I know why you always have to make sure you check in on this. Even as simple as if you're a manager or a leader and you're people are like, what?

6:31 I was like, that's it. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this at work, leading a team, working with a client, with your spouse, where you give some type of feedback and you stop and say, what did you just hear? And they begin to tell you something that you did not say. And you go, wow, I didn't say that. What you heard and what I said doesn't match. Hmm. Let me figure out how to say it a different way to see if I could actually get this information across the bridge to you. Because what I just sent across the bridge and what came across the bridge isn't the same. And I was like, ooh, that's really important. As simple as this sounds, I'd probably guess 95% of the people listening to this often give feedback and don't ask if the person just heard what it is that they just shared.

7:19 And then they wonder... why that person goes and does something that isn't what they asked them to do. That's the second stage. First stage is they didn't even hear you. The second stage is they go do what they thought they heard and come back and you go, what are you doing? That's not what I said. So you never verified what it is that you sent across to make sure they got it. And then you go watch them do what they heard and it's the completely wrong thing. And you just wasted all this time. And so effectively speaking, learning really simple things that you can only learn by messing it up and then packaging it and saying, well, what is the most important part in all this? And so I sat down and I took one person who was a world famous bodybuilder slash celebrity trainer who was a personal friend of mine who was physically training me in bodybuilding at the time.

8:11 And he said, can you teach me how to do what you do? Like, what do you need what I do for? Yeah. He says, well, I work for hours every day helping these people sculpt their bodies, but I don't know if you've ever heard this. I often hear it from a hairstylist, a makeup artist, a nail salon, a personal trainer. It's anyone who's in the people business who says, you know what I found I spend most of my time doing? Acting like some sort of therapist or counselor to all my clients who come and sit in this chair. He said the same thing. He said, you know what I find myself doing most of the time every hour I spend with my clients? Helping them work through all their life problems.

8:52 And he said, but here's the truth. I'm wildly equipped to help them sculpt their body. I don't know if I have as many tools as you do on how to help them actually sculpt their life. I said, that's fair. I can help them sculpt their life, but I have no clue what to tell them to do to get abs. I said, maybe we could trade a little. And I said, okay, here, why don't I meet with you once a week for a couple hours and I'll kind of download over to you piece by piece of the most important stuff. And it took me, I think three or four months. And every Saturday we met together for a couple hours and I just kind of downloaded piece by piece by piece. The neat part was that He learned it. He practiced it.

9:33 About three months into the training, I remember he texts me, he goes, yo, this is going to sound weird, but one of my clients wants to sign up for that course you just put me through. I text him back, what course? He's like, you know, the coaching course you put me through. I was like, I didn't put you through a coaching course. I taught you what I know. And he's like, yeah, but she kept asking me, where am I learning all this stuff from? And I told her I learned it from you and now she wants to learn it. Great. I'm not going to do that again. I'm going to go sit there for two hours every weekend with another person. Like, this is crazy. And he's like, well, can you package it or something? Can you somehow give it to her?

10:14 I'm like, no. And then another one of his clients were like, hey, I want to learn that too. And then another one, another one. Pretty soon there was like 15, 20 people. And I was like, no, I'm not going to teach it to you. Like I taught it to him. That's it. And eventually he was like, dude, you should probably do this. It's probably a good business opportunity. I'm like, I don't care about the business opportunity. I think of this as like apprenticeship. I just passed down some very, very important knowledge to you. And I trust you with it. I don't know if I trust those people with it. And he's like, come on. Like, you taught it once. Can't you just teach it again? So I thought about it. And I said, fine. Here's what we'll do.

10:54 Put the group together. Here's how much I think it'd be a fair investment. And when I did the investment part, I said, how long would it take for this person, one, to earn their money back? And then two, what kind of return could they get for the next two years, five years, 10 years, 20 years of their life with these tools, personally and professionally? So I sat down and I think at the time it wasn't that much. It was a few thousand dollars. And I put it together and I said, Hey, most of you are... His clients are professionals. They all own businesses for the most part. They're all super successful at what they do. They're professional athletes. They're business owners. They own franchises. I mean, these people make 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, $100 million a year.

11:36 They're very successful. And so they wanted to do it. And I couldn't do my normal thing, which is like, Okay, well... Meet me at 10 a.m. every day. 10 a.m.? I'm running my company, dude. I don't have time for that. I'm not meeting you on the weekends. That's my time. And so I sat down and I said, well, what if we did it like night school? You're getting your MBA. We'll do it like night school. I'll meet you Monday, Wednesday, Friday for an hour. And each hour, I'll give you one specific tool set that you can go practice for the next 24 hours and then meet me back. So we outlined it, we built it out, and then we delivered. Group one went through, raving fans, absolutely loved it. And unintentionally, we had people career shift where they're like, wow, like I knew I loved this information, but I didn't think I'd love it more than what I've been doing for 15 years of my life.

12:26 So we had someone who used to be a counselor switch over to coaching full time. I was like, I wouldn't have tried to convince you to do that. And he's like, no, after doing this, I didn't know there was something I could do that was so similar to what I've been already doing. But instead of talking about people's problems all day, I could talk about their dreams, their goals, their joys. He's like, this is way cooler. I've been talking about people's problems for 30 years. I'm ready to talk about what they want in life instead of what pains them. Like, well, that makes sense. So he came over. It was Wade. And then it started to pick up steam. And we sat back. And it was funny. For years, there was all these other accreditations.

13:08 So BCC, ICF, stuff like that. And I always looked at him like, what do you need that for? Why does some guy in Kentucky get to decide who's legit and who's not in the coaching space? Who the hell is he? That's literally my word for word thought process around this company in Kentucky that gets to decide who's an accredited coach and who's not. And I was like, nonsense. And I remember one time my wife looked at me and she says, I know you've been doing this for, what, 22 years. And she said, the only thing keeping you from actually doing that is two things. Number one, you're failing to adopt a learner's mindset. And number two, you're letting your ego get in the way.

13:50 And she said, if you don't want to do it, I'll go do it for the betterment of everyone involved. I was like, wow, ain't that the truth? She was looking at it of what can we do to make it better for everyone involved. I was looking at it of why the hell do I have to have someone else tell me if I'm legit or not? I was looking at myself and my own ego. She was looking at the greater good. So I remember I laid my ego down, stepped back into that learner's mindset and said, let's go. Let's go. I went and signed up for courses, brand new foundational coaching courses I went through from the very beginning for, I think it was six months through all of them, level one, level two, all this stuff.

14:30 And then we got our full ICF accreditation so that we could then pay that forward to everyone who comes through our course. That way there's that outside regulating body. And I went back and forth. Even I went back and forth on my dad with this, where I said, hey, we're getting ICF accredited. And he's like, do you think it's worth it? Like, is it useful? Is there anything with it? I said, I don't know. If I was going to get on a Boeing airplane nowadays, I'd kind of like a third party looking under the hood, making sure it's actually put together correctly. I'd rather not be on a plane and have the door fly off because someone didn't have an outside set of eyes taking a peek to make sure everyone did their job right. And he's like, that makes sense. He's like, but could you imagine me going through this?

15:13 I said, no. But Amanda told me something really important. She said, the only thing between you and getting this done is your ego. And he looked at me and he's like, that's fucking right. I started laughing. She goes, she's spot on with that. I said, okay, don't let your ego get in the way. And what a great story. And I'm curious, I want to talk more about performance coach you in a little bit before we get there, though. I love that you built this. What's the origin story behind you getting interested in performance coaching in the first place? It was the opposite. So I didn't start that way. I started with who I wanted to coach. And I built this thing called my ideal client, the perfect person that I want to work with.

15:59 And over about a 10-year period of time... I matured and realized life wasn't just about what I wanted in my own business. And I asked a different question. I said, based on the last 10 years of doing this, who are the people that got the best results? For every dollar, for every hour they put in, they got... 100x, 1,000x return, where other people might have got a 5x or a 10x return. And I noticed a pattern. There was a very specific type of person that was getting a 100 or 1,000x return on every dollar and every hour they spent working with me. And I went, ah, I have to let go of all the things I want out of this.

16:39 And I have to get real committed to serving the people who get the biggest, best, and most consistent results from this. And so I narrowed down my entire practice to focus on the people who get the best and most consistent return. And it happened to be around performance, specifically for business owners. I love this. What was the gap between, like, describe a little bit who you thought you wanted to work with and who that actual person. Okay. Yeah. I wanted to work with everybody. I love it. If you were breathing, I could transform your life. And the truth is, it's true. Luckily, I've gathered the tools for 22 years now.

17:20 that you can put me a village in Uganda and I can help transform someone's life who lives in deep poverty and is just trying to get out. You can put me in a Wall Street bank and I can absolutely transform the performance of any executive or associate or member or vice president or anywhere on the ladder. You can put me with a top athlete on earth. I can get them to perform better. You can put me with a school teacher. I can get them to be a better teacher. A better parent, a better mom, a better dad, and anywhere in between. So luckily, I have the ability to do that. But those people didn't get the thousand X return that a certain set of clients did. I love that. When you made the decision to make that shift, how did that change your business? How did it change your coaching?

18:00 How did it change your experience? Yeah. It made it more fun, made it more smooth, made it more exciting. I could start guaranteeing results where before it was like, well, things will be better, but I don't know by how much. I don't know by when. I don't know in which ways. You know, the results are up to you. My job is to coach you. Your job is to figure out what results. I love when I meet coaches who talk about the fact they're like, oh no, I can't guarantee results. That's up to the client and their effort. And my first thought is you're full of shit. Why? Absolutely full of shit. Because imagine you and I own a sports franchise and we hire a coach. And that coach comes up to our office.

18:42 We're paying him $20 million a year to coach whatever team we own. And he goes, hey, I just want to tell you the truth. Whether this team wins or loses, it's not really my fault as a coach. I'm just here to coach. It's really up to the players to decide if they're going to win or lose. Yeah. How long would you retain that $20 million a year coach? What are you thinking? A 10-year streak? No, you're fucking fired. Get out. If you're not willing to take ownership of the team that you're going to be coaching, I'm not willing to pay you a dime to be on my team. Now, if you walk in, you say, hey, I'm committed to getting this team to do whatever it takes to win that championship the next five years in a row.

19:23 Does that mean you're actually going to win? Maybe. statistically speaking, probably not five in a row. But if I know you have that level of ownership, you're willing to show up, have conversations, get to know these people, get into their worlds, have a pulse on who they are and what they're doing every day, have some type of rhythm to understand how they're feeling, how they're playing, how they're adjusting, how they're showing up. And you are all in on making sure you're doing whatever it takes to keep them at their best. And you own the result. Yeah, I'm gonna work with you all day long. But most coaches, most coaches, most coaches like to cop out with the first excuse. It's up to the client to determine what kind of results they'll get.

20:06 Now, I realize there's also FTC compliant where you can't guarantee certain results on the front page of an advertisement. It's illegal. You will get shut down. But here's the truth. What result, and here's the question I would ask, what result can you guarantee for any person who decides to work with you? Even if it's a base foundational result, what is the result you can guarantee? If you work with me, you will get this. If you want this, work with me. If you want something else, I'll tell you who to go work with to get it. And do you know your industry well enough to know who provides what result? If you want this result, come here. If you want that result, go there. I'm very clear on what results I can produce.

20:47 And I'm very clear on who can help produce other results. Yeah. That way when someone shows up and asks, I can do what's right for them. I love that. That's true advocacy, right? That's us being honest and advocating on behalf of the human that we're in front of. Let's just say that I'm one of the many coaches right now who's like, fuck, he got me. I'm totally copping out right now. Damn it. Damn it. Internally, how do we make that shift? Because obviously you can look at yourself in the mirror and go, okay, I legitimately don't think I have the skill set to guarantee a result, at which point you got to go to work and gain that knowledge and gain that skill set. But let's just say this.

21:27 Right. Yeah. Go be an apprentice. If I wanted to be a Shaolin ninja right now, I can look myself in the mirror and honestly say, I do not know how to do any of that. I do not know how to do a backflip. I don't know how to walk across thin wire and a thousand feet in the air. I don't know how to climb a tree without ropes. I don't know how to do all those cool things. If I wanted to obtain that skillset, I'd probably have to go to China, find a Shaolin monastery and show up as an apprentice. Hi, I'd like to learn this craft. And they'd tell me to go sit in silence and stare at the wall for 12 weeks. And I'd be like, seriously? Teach me how to backflip. Do I really want to do this? Teach me how to backflip.

22:08 I came here for the backflip. And they're like, hey, paint the fence. You know, what is it? Paint the fence, wash the car. Sandalfloor. Yeah, they're going to teach me stuff that I think is ridiculous. And then at some point I get put in the mix of it. And all of a sudden I realized I learned all the skills. Wax on, wax off. I learned all the skills because I was willing to be an apprentice. I was willing to stand very close to someone who knew how to guarantee results. And I was willing to over and over practice and practice and practice and practice until I got it. I've done this multiple times in different categories. I first did this with coaching. Then I switched over and I said, you know, I know nothing about business. I know a lot about coaching. But if I'm honest, my business is just kind of me holding onto a rocket ship for dear life.

22:54 And when I first launched my own coaching practice, I went from zero to over 50 one-on-one clients within eight months. And that's mostly unheard of. And also not a good idea. It's two sides. Not a good idea and mostly unheard of. I was 24 years old. I'd made over $100,000 within eight months. I felt like king of the world at that stage of life. And that was a long time ago when $100,000 was a lot of money back then. I think I'm old enough to say that kind of stuff now. But the concept was, I did it through partnership. There's a way to scale through partnership. I'll share that in a little bit. But I found a partner. We had the three critical elements of scaling that were present between the two of us.

23:38 And I went from signing up one or two clients a month to signing up 20 to 30 clients in a day. And all of a sudden, I was full. I was having trouble remembering people's names. I was having trouble remembering what they were working on. It was a mess. And then all of a sudden, I remember I got a call from a guy who was teaching coaches how to grow their business in the UK who used to have these seminars. And he said, hey, someone told me through the grapevine that you went from zero to 50 clients in eight months in the very beginning. Is that true? He says, yeah, it's absolutely true. And he said, can I pay and fly you out to an event I'm doing in the UK where you can come share whatever it is you did and help all these coaches grow their business? Yeah. Sure, I guess. So I went in that and then all of a sudden a speaking career launched.

24:19 And I remember getting paid $1,200 to go talk somewhere. I'm like, what? That's legit. Like, this is real money. Like, oh my God, $1,200. This is crazy. Recently, I just signed a $100,000 speaking gig, one in the Middle East and one in Columbia next year. And I was like, wow, it gets bigger over the years as long as you refine your craft and I sat down with someone and I said, hey, when you spend this amount of money on a speaker, a keynote speaker for your event, what result do you want from it? And the owner of the company told me, I want my agents to come in and say, that was great, it was energizing, that was really awesome.

25:00 That's it. That's all you want for this money? Shoot. That's easy. I said, why don't you and I sit down and instead of thinking about a speaking fee, like you pay someone 30 or 40 grand to get your team to say, that was awesome. Why don't we sit down and come up with a plan that would actually grow your business by 100% over the next 90 days? When I said that, he looked at me like I was insane. I was like, I can grow your business 100%. And he's like, come on. I've been doing this for 30 years. You think you're going to take one thing from stage and magically the whole company will grow? I said, you won't bet me. It's not what I do from stage. It's reverse engineering. If that's the result I need to have happen in the next 90 days, what's everything I need to do between now and then to get this team ready to produce it?

25:47 I'm not just going to show up and say a few things from stage. That's a waste of time. But I will put the right things in place and have the right conversations and put the right measurements and tracking in place that by 90 days from now, you'll see your whole business double. That's worth a lot more than a speaking fee. So all of a sudden we're talking about a lot more than a speaking fee and someone's willing to put a hundred thousand up front. I'll earn it back on the backend and I'll probably earn a lot more. I was like, that's totally different. That's guaranteeing a result. That's not trying to sell something. If I don't get the result, I don't get paid. It's like, different game, totally different game. Coming back to the coaching side, Looking at that, so started off, launched, had my 50 clients and they were mostly business owners.

26:33 So I started with business owners, but they were all different shapes and sizes, just trying to figure out how to put their business online. I had a friend who was teaching them what to do. I was holding them accountable and working through their own stuff that might keep them from actually following through as a mindset coach, you know, accountability coach. Over time, my practice grew around the world. Now we have active clients in 133 countries. And so as I grew around the world and started reaching people all over the place, I learned I needed to learn new skills. About eight years into my business, I realized I don't know beans about business. That was a hard one to swallow because like, what are you talking about? I am successful. I have clients all over the world.

27:13 I've achieved things. I've done stuff. And then I was like, yeah, I really don't understand the concept though. I sat through a family friend's presentation on numbers and finances and everything. All the math of business, which I loved math so much as a kid, I used to hide my math homework beside the couch. And my mom would say, do you have any homework? I was like, nope. One day she moved the couch. She's like, whose homework is this? It's like, not mine. She's like, you're my only child. So which child put it back here? I just wasn't good at it and I hated it. So I used to hide it. And so I sat down with him and he helped me become financially literate, which I found out over 50% of business owners don't even look at their P&L every month.

27:56 Over, you know, I think it's 50 to 60% don't even know how to read it properly. Right. Most people just skim down to the net profit line and go, oh, I'm either rich or that sucks. And they don't know the difference. And so I was like, okay, he made me financially literate. Once I became financially literate as a business owner, I was able to apply what I learned He also taught me everything he'd been learning for 40 plus years in buying and selling businesses. I grew our business by 124% over the next three years. And I was making more money working less hours than ever before in my life. I was like, what? What? What secret magic sauce did you just sprinkle on me?

28:37 Like, I'm working less, I'm making more, and I actually understand how to run the engine of this thing. What happened? And it was me willing to be an apprentice with him and him willing to transfer knowledge and experience and hold me accountable to apply it and test it and refine it. At some point, he looked at me and he said, hey, you should do this with others. You got it. You know what you're doing. You've passed the apprenticeship level. You can now guide. Go ahead. And I went and got my first handful of clients and we helped them grow their business. And so we've helped scale all kinds of businesses. The work we did at Success, we rebuilt that department and grew it by 300% and got it profitable with eight months and it was good to go.

29:19 We went over the best result I have right now in the last couple of years is a woman-run consulting firm. We've helped scale them 2,600% over the last three years. Their intention was to have a side gig. It is now an industry leader in what they do. It's remarkable. We've helped companies grow in like a food business in Louisiana. We helped them grow 50% during the pandemic. Everyone else was falling apart and they were scaling. And then you can grow revenue and get poor and actually go out of business if you do it wrong. There's a phrase I love, which is most businesses choke to death on indigestion. They don't starve to death. They're trying to do too much instead of not enough.

30:02 And so with them, we actually cut back on what they were doing, which caused their revenue to go up. And then we optimized it, which got their profit to go up 195% in that year as well. And so we've learned there's just a few levers you can pull. And if you do it right, the business transforms. So we've been doing that with businesses now for the past 10 years with him. And his last couple of years, he gave me the green flag. He says, hey, you need to build your own group where you do this. And I sat down, I just started about a year and a half ago learning about the concept of private equity and these types of funds. And I was like, I need to have one of these. And then I sat down with a friend who's in the space and he said, tell me what you do already.

30:46 And I showed him all the pieces and he's like, dude, you already have a private equity fund. The only thing you're missing is capitalization. Yeah. Like, really? So I'm working on a partnership right now with some partners of ours. And our goal is to bring our first 400 to $500 million fund to life in the next few months. Awesome. I love it. I got a question for you on this. This is really what a great journey. And I think one of the things that really pops out to me, Jarek, is your realization. I heard somebody say, and I can't remember who it was off the top of my head, but within the last couple of weeks, I was listening to a podcast and heard somebody say, your craft will only get you so far.

31:26 And I think especially in the coaching industry, that is a rampant thought that I'm an amazing coach. And just like you, you know, clearly you are a fantastic coach. You were, you know, crushing it. You were showing results. You had seen external success. But you found the way of a thought to realize that there were things that you didn't know that were holding you back from what you could have. And there are going to be plenty of people listening to this that don't want to go build, you know, something to the size or scale that you've built to this point or what we're building. Some people do. But my question is this. If somebody is going to be in the space at all. we believe so fully that they've, you know, it's necessary to recognize that you are now a business owner.

32:12 Even if it's just you, you are a business of one. And so I'm curious, what is something that really helped you in terms of the mindset shift from, I'm a good performer, like I can crush it as a coach and now I'm a business owner? What was that transition? I think that transition happened when I met a mentor and it was that business mentor who showed me what owning a business was versus what I had. And when I saw the difference, I went, oh, that is very different. But until I had the contrast, I didn't know the difference. At the time, I think he had 15 businesses or 15 locations, let's say, of different businesses.

32:56 And his responsibility was he had sourced, hired, trained, and continued to train and onboarded the best people. There's clear tactical stuff you need to do at every one of those. How to source great people is a whole training. How to... negotiate and pick the right ones and onboard them. Onboarding is a whole training. Onboarding, if I were to put it this way, imagine I would have put you in a car and instead of giving you an on-ramp to the highway, I would have all the cars going 80 miles an hour like Texas. And then I give you a Fiat with a four-stroke engine and have no on-ramp.

33:41 There's just a little opening on the side of the highway that you're supposed to magically go from dead stop to 90 miles an hour to stay ahead of the giant trucks in Texas from running you over. Any takers? Every person looks at me like, are you crazy? That Texas truck will literally run me over. Like, they ain't slowing down in Texas. And I picked Texas on purpose. Like, they're going to honk twice and run you off the road. versus if I gave you the same car, but I gave you an on-ramp. I gave you a full ramp that gives you enough time and enough space to get enough speed so that by the time you enter the highway, you're going fast enough to maintain the flow of traffic.

34:23 Yeah, that's very comfortable. And then I look at most business owners and ask, what does your on-ramp look like for your new team member you just hired? I don't care if it's a virtual assistant or if it's a full-time employee at your office. What does your on-ramp look like? Most people stare blankly at me and say, on-ramp? Yeah. Great. You're just shoving cars in the middle of 90 mile an hour traffic, expecting it to survive and wondering why. Why do these great people just keep leaving? I don't understand. You don't have an on-ramp. You're trying to kill people? It's ridiculous. Think about your people. Be safe. Be intelligent with how you on-ramp people.

35:05 Then I look at the same thing. I pull it apart. And I was like, okay, let me look at your team. Let me look at your organization. What is an A plus for you? Let's say you're the business owner, CEO, you're running it. What does an A plus in your position look like? Meaning if we hired someone to do your position, what are the exact outcomes they must accomplish for us to give them an A plus? What about a B? What about a C? What about fucking fired? Okay. What do those results look like? I call that a scorecard. Now, a scorecard should be graded every day, every week.

35:45 You know exactly what you need to do to get an A. Never should you come to me at the end of 90 days or a quarter for a review and be surprised at what your score is. Imagine you and I own a basketball team and they put a drape over the scoreboard every game. And what happens is we send the guys out or the girls and they go play for the entire quarter one. And then you hear, and then at the end of the quarter, they lift up the scoreboard and tell us how many fouls we got, how many points we made or didn't make. And all of a sudden we find out what the score is after the quarter's over.

36:27 Would that be helpful? Absolutely not helpful. The game's over. There's nothing you can do. That's what giving feedback at the end of every quarter is like. You magically unveil what just happened and surprise the hell out of people going, oh shit, I didn't know I was winning or losing. Why would you do that? That's not a smart way to play the game. You should have a scoreboard up at all times. At any moment, I can look up on the wall and know exactly how I'm performing in my position. Am I getting an A, a B, a C? Am I ahead? Am I behind? Am I crushing it? Am I missing it? I should know exactly how I'm performing. Now, if you're a coach, you should probably have a scoreboard of what an A plus looks like according to the client you're working with.

37:08 There's never a time you should have a client reach out to you and say, hey, I don't know if I'm really satisfied with the results I'm getting with you. And you're like, oh, really? I don't know. I thought things were working. Yeah. Are you shitting me? Where's the scorecard? What does an A plus look like? Are you delivering an A every session? If you're not, what are you doing? Stuff like that. Love it. Let me ask you this question. I want to circle back to PCU for a minute. And that was really great context. And by the way, I love that you brought forth the scorecard. That's something that we're hammering on consistently. I'll tell you the most important one, just a side topic, the one with your spouse. Yeah.

37:48 There's nothing worse than watching someone work their face off, come home one day, open the front door and see their spouse sitting there with a stack of divorce papers. And them being shocked because they didn't know what was happening. What was your scorecard with your spouse? What does an A-plus look like? Are you delivering? Worst thing that happens is you sit down a couple and you ask, usually him, how's it going? Amazing. I mean, we love each other. We've been together forever. Kids are great. Everything's awesome. What would you score yourself? Probably an eight. Awesome. Lean over their spouse. Let's say it's a woman. Ma'am, how do you think you're doing? She's like, probably a three. I've never seen a man be gutted more in that moment than anywhere else in life.

38:32 Looks like someone just ripped his guts out. He's like, a three? Seriously, where was your scorecard? What was your scoreboard? What was the score at all times? Dagger, man. That's a dagger. Dude, God. I wish we had two hours for this. We're going to have to have a follow-up because there's too much more to unpack. For the purposes of time, I want to make sure that as it relates to Performance Coach University, I want to ask you a question. For somebody who's listening to this right now and is going, man, I'm really resonating with this story. I'm resonating with what this guy's got. I like his juice. I feel like this is something that maybe I want. I want to speak to somebody who's already a coach.

39:13 Plenty of people. If you're not a coach, you need to run to performancecoachuniversity.com and get yourself signed up immediately. Somebody who's already a coach, what am I looking for when I come this or what is available to me that for most is probably not a level that they've reached yet? Sure. So a couple of things. One, you could start with the bland notion of a lifetime learner, always gathering more tools. The way I frame that in my head is I would never want to meet someone whose life as business is on the line that I didn't take the extra two hours to learn the tool that would have helped them in that moment.

39:53 I want to make sure that if I run into someone whose life or business is on the line, I took the two hours to gather the information and the tool and practice and refine it long enough that I can deliver in moments when it really matters. And so for a broad spectrum, come gather the tools. We have the biggest tool chest on earth when it comes to performance coaching and getting people and their businesses to their absolute best. From a personal aspect, to make it a little bit deeper or more impactful, I'm going to I looked at generally what people offer. And my wife and I have, again, I just got done with another level two course for ICF. My wife and I are currently in a team coaching course.

40:36 I also just signed up with Wharton University to go through a private equity course. I have a somatic therapy course coming up after that. I have a Harvard, what is it called? owners, presidents, and manager, an OPM course I'm going to sign up for in the next couple of years. I'm always hunting for more information, knowledge, and insights, and not just within my field, but in all fields, so I can integrate it back into what I do. And so that concept of being committed to it, but what does that really mean? What that means is, if you look at it, besides just gathering more tools, is can I surround myself with others that, who are constantly driven to learn and grow and connect and do more.

41:18 One of the most common things I hear with coaches is, I'm lacking that peer group. I'm lacking that group of people that gets it, who are in the mix, who are committed to it, who are really going for it, who are hungry and driven and passionate and on board and willing to do the work. Like, well, how many courses a year do you take? And how well are you building your tribe in all these? I was like, I'm in a course every single day of the week. I was like, I have amazing network and peer group. I was just talking, I just saw someone who had a profile from Chalaluncorn who's accounting and finance. Chalaluncorn is like the Harvard of Thailand. I was like, ooh, I'm going to be friends with that guy. I was like, man, I'm getting one of the most educated, trained, highly efficient kids on earth in this space that I get to be friends with early on in his life.

42:04 There's tons of value I can add to him. And I bet one day I might hire him to be the CEO of one of our companies we buy. I was like, ooh, but how would I have met him if I didn't sign up for the course that provided a global network of people who are considered best in class at what they do all over the globe? Amen. Same thing. We're really honored. I feel humbled because I get to meet some of the people who've chosen to come through PCU. And I always kind of smile. There are certain people where like the little boy in me is just, I want to meet them and they're coming to train with us. We have a couple of former special operators from the pararescue jumper unit in the special ops. We have NFL, NHL, MLB athletes that have come through wanting to learn how to coach.

42:49 They said, hey, I've been a pro athlete my whole life. People are asking me to help them better up their life or business. I want to learn the tools. We have consultants that come out of McKinsey and Deloitte who they say, hey, I know the consulting, the business side of consulting. I want to know the people side of consulting. So they come learn the people side of the business with us. We have counselors, therapists, nurses, all kinds of people from the helping professions come through to get more tools and skills. We have people, like I mentioned earlier, who are in a position where they might be cutting someone's hair or doing a facial or, you know, a personal trainer. And they end up feeling like they're some type of therapist or counselor to all these people. So they come learn actual tools to actually be able to help them when they're talking to them for those hours at a time.

43:32 We've had everyone between Johnson and Johnson, the United Airlines reach out, say, hey, our pilots are having trouble communicating with corporate. Can you guys help us build a program to bridge the communication? I was like, I don't know if I feel like flying United if they're not talking well today. Yeah. kind of an important group of people that need to communicate effectively. So we're really honored. It's amazing. And it's such a blessing that we get to share these tools with all these incredible humans and they get to take them and plug them right back into all the companies they work for, whether they're consultants to Apple or Google or any of these companies, like they're able to come gather our tools and then put them to work in those organizations, which is really humbling and also exciting at the same time, knowing this stuff is going to the right places.

44:15 Yeah. Oh, so good, man. Thank you for all of that. And if this is something that you're interested in, you should be, if you're listening to this podcast, you're already in a place where you're seeking out information. I love the thirst for knowledge. The master is the constant student. You know, we've got to continue to do that. Go to performancecoachuniversity.com. It's performancecoachuniversity.com. You can sign up to get certified and you're playing with some big players over there, man. And I just want to say thank you for spending the time with us. I really hope we get an opportunity to do it again. And there's so much more to unpack, but I appreciate you just coming and dropping so much wisdom and, you know, helping us level up as well.

44:56 You know, we're constantly looking to learn. It's one of the reasons that we love to do this podcast. And, you know, I know that you and Brooke have a great relationship and have for many years, and I look forward to getting to know you personally as well. And just want to say thanks. We really enjoyed it. And I'm grateful for you and all that you're doing to, you know, as your wife said, to really help the greater good here, because there's a ton that you're doing to do that right now, brother. And we just barely scratched the surface of it today. So thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, brother. Go catch some waves for us. We'll definitely have to have you back for another round, man. Appreciate you. Guys, thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation podcast. Once again, go to www.performancecoachuniversity.com and we'll see you on the next episode.

45:42 Thank you for listening to this episode of The Coaching Equation. Please hit subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. 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.