Origin Story

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. All right, guys, welcome into the Coaching Equation podcast.

0:43 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, and my co-host, Brooke Bishop. Brooke, how's it going, brother? Doing very, very good. I'm excited. Dude, so excited for this. You guys, this has been a while in the making, and... It's super fun to be bringing this to you today. This is our episode zero. So we're just going to take a little bit of time today to introduce ourselves to you and introduce you to what this show is going to be about and everything that we're going to be doing in the future with the Coaching Equation podcast. So first things first, let's just start off with some introductions. Brooke, tell everybody a little bit about you, brother. Yeah. So first off, pumped to be doing this podcast with you. This is going to be such an epic journey. Yeah, as far as my background, my world, where I've come from.

1:23 So I've got over two decades of being in the world of personal development, specifically with coaches, consultants, experts. I've had the opportunity, although some of it might not have felt that way at the time, but the opportunity to work with some of the biggest names in the game of coaching and personal development. So people like Brian Buffini. So if anyone knows the real estate space, he's one of the biggest names in the world of coaching for realtors. I got to work with Tony Robbins for 15 years and got to be his executive director of business mastery, his live events for Unleashed Power Within, overseeing his coaching, got to create coaching programs for him. I got to work with John Asarif, got to work with clients on demand and Russ Ruffino, got to work with the who's who of the coaching space.

2:05 So it's been an epic journey in that capacity. And dude, yeah, we've got some really cool stuff in store to bring to our listeners, as well as our guests that are going to be here in the near future. So love it, dude. Thank you for the intro. And that's the modest CliffsNotes version of Brooks Bile. Guys, I'm Ryan Lang, and I've got a really fun and eclectic background. I was in broadcasting for a little while before I got into the business world and worked for, you know, some pretty big organizations, the Tampa Bay Bucks, the New York Yankees. And I had a lot of fun in broadcasting before I really got into the business world and spent about 15 years in the energy industry, helping to build what became an eight-figure company in that industry and built that up as a partner.

2:51 And when I exited my partnership, that's really where I got into the world of coaching. I was always interested in personal development and I'd come to a crossroads in my life and really... Taking my life into a realm where I was helping other people more than just running around and chasing a buck every day is really what I wanted. That's why I got into coaching in the first place. And before I ever started helping coaches, I was a coach myself trying to figure out just like you are right now. trying, failing, going through all of the motions. I've been part of a bazillion different masterminds. I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the best in the industry. And I also found that as I got into my coaching journey, that I had a little bit of a knack for coaching coaches and specifically in the sales realm and had an opportunity to meet Brooke when we were doing some contract work together for clients on demand.

3:46 And this has been an amazing ride, an amazing journey. I've had the opportunity not just to build my own coaching practice, but in addition to that, to help at this point, nearly thousands of coaches help build their coaching practices and businesses as well. And now here we are together. Which is a funny story in and of itself because Brooke and I met doing some contract work. And as we were on a Zoom call, literally the conversation was like, where are you at? Oh, I'm in Northern Colorado. Oh, really? Where at? Fort Collins, oh my gosh, you're 15 minutes from me. We're literally on a Zoom call and realized that we're 15 minutes from each other, which was a crazy, crazy thing.

4:30 And, you know, we got to be friends and eventually business partners. And that kind of brings us to a point in the story, brother, where I want to dig into why we... started Empire Partners, our company in the first place. And really, the origin story behind Empire is really a great way to segue into the podcast because truly the mission of both is one and the same. So, why don't you start on that and I'll fill in some holes as we go. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I believe it was divine guided intervention in terms of us meeting each other the way that we did and just how everything's shaken out the way it has. But yeah, I mean, you and I both have been in the game of coaching other people. We've also been in the industry of coaching for a long window of time.

5:12 And so with Empire, it really is this catalyst. It came about with us being able to take our expertise to help other people who are the conduit to helping the masses. So we get to be this ripple effect in this conversation. bigger play where you and I could coach max out probably some between 50 to 500 people and we'd be redlining in terms of how many people we'd be coaching. But the reality is if we can go help 1,000 to 2,000 to 10,000 to 100,000 coaches, that transforms the planet. So... Where we saw a real gap in that space is there's so many coaches. I mean, we were talking about this beforehand. Coaches now are kind of like being a real estate agent.

5:52 Yeah, it's so true. Right? Yeah. Everybody's a coach. Everybody's a coach. Everybody's a coach. Or at least everybody knows a coach. Yeah. Somebody who slapped a sticker on their door saying, hey, I'm a coach. Yeah. Right? So what we saw the gap in that marketplace is 98% of coaches are doing it as a side hustle. Yeah. Yeah. And so when we think of it from the aspect of people being passionate, really wanting to help other people, really wanting to bring their gifts and their expertise to the forefront. Well, if you're working a traditional J-O-B 40 hours a week or some people more, that doesn't leave you a lot of time to have the impact and really be living the purpose side of things. So where we saw Empire come into this play is like, how do we help these coaches really do this full time and be able to bring that gift to their world without having to do the J-O-B?

6:36 And that really comes down to, and it sounds more accounting-y or technical, but becoming a profitable coach. Yeah. So if we can help more coaches become profitable, they can live out their mission. And that's usually that gap. So that's really where I see our piece coming through. Yeah, I agree. And I think that's really the key distinction is that... Empire Partners as a company, and as well as this podcast, is really centered and focused around the idea of helping coaches become profitable business owners. Because that's another thing. Between the two of us, we've coached thousands of coaches together. And we know a lot of incredible coaches that have amazing skill sets that can create transformative results for their clients.

7:17 And... I could probably count on the 10 fingers that I have. Maybe that's the number of coaches that I know that are really great business owners. Very few. And by the way, it's not anybody's fault either. It's not their fault. It's not your fault if that's the vote that you're in right now. Because the reality is nobody teaches you how to do it. You know, you learn an expertise and in a lot of cases, it's you figured out doing what you've done for a long time and then you go teach it. Or maybe you go the more traditional route in coaching and you go get a coaching certification from somewhere and you get a great framework on how to coach people and create those transformative results. But the problem is nobody tells you that now you got to actually go out and run a business.

7:59 If you're going to be successful and profitable and not have to get stuck with the JLB for the rest of your life and have the freedom and autonomy that you really want to have. you need to be able to be a profitable business owner. And that's really what our business, Empire Partners is all about. And that's really what this podcast is all about. And for a little bit of context as well, collectively between the two of us, we have worked for and in and consulted for the biggest coaching companies in the world in addition to helping thousands of individual coaches. And so we've seen everything from coaches at the very beginning to, to coaching companies that are doing 7, 8, 9 figures.

8:44 We've seen it all. And that's a big part of what we're going to bring in this podcast is this vast amount of experience where Brooke brings a significant amount of experience in the coaching industry specifically. I have plenty of experience in the coaching industry, but I've also got a lot of experience in business in general and in building a company and that kind of thing. And so, between the two of us, as I think we're counting it up, what, 40 years in total? I think a little bit more than that. That's scary. Yeah. That's a little... That is a little scary. So, let's go ahead and dive in really and talk about why... If you're here right now and you're listening to this, why in the hell should you pay any attention to the two of us?

9:25 And why in the world would you want to subscribe to this podcast? Why would you tune in and listen with the episodes that we're going to put out? And I'll start by just saying that we want to hand you everything that you need to be able to go out and actually build a profitable, sustainable, sustainable, sustainable. if you want, scalable coaching business. And that includes the strategies and tactics that we see are working with our clients, both at the individual level and at the enterprise level, day in and day out. The tactics that we know are cutting edge and are working, bringing in... And this is something that we're really passionate about, the guests...

10:07 that represent various services and companies and thought leadership in the coaching space that can be helpful to you at empire. We're really big on inclusion. We love partners and we've got a lot of them and we're blessed in that way. We love helping other people and other companies. And we love having other people and other companies help us and help our clients. So we're committed to bringing you those people and also being able to kind of bring to you guys a holistic vision. view of a coaching business, sales, marketing, fulfillment, finance. Some of you just cringed, right? Yeah. Oh, yes. We will talk about the financial aspect of your business, leadership and team management as you build and grow a coaching company.

10:55 And in addition to that, look, Brooke and I are both coaches as well. Coaches need coaches and we will focus on the mindset side of the game. Also, we all need it. Brooke, Tell the listener a little bit about why you would really want people to listen to this podcast and what you believe we're going to be able to deliver to them. Yeah. So, there's two sides of this the way I look at it. The mass majority of people that are out there, they know what they probably should be doing, but they probably aren't doing it for one of two reasons. One, they have their own limiting beliefs about their own success and they've got some form of a blockage that's there. To your point, we can coach through that. The other side of that is there's a fear of screwing it up or not knowing where the landmines are or missing that one little piece.

11:38 That's one thing that I can say, honestly, we've been in the game for a long time with this. There's so many people that are out there that pound their fists on the table as being an expert. And they'll give you three of the 10 pieces. And so you feel like you've got enough of the recipe. You go to put it in play and they've throttled those other seven pieces. So you got to go spend a ton of money and get their program. And even then they won't give you all the keys to the kingdom. And so we've really done a, what I believe is a really good job of putting everything everything out. If we say here, here's the strategy soup to nuts, like we're not sitting there throttling on the pieces. In addition to that, we've gotten really good to have helping people see the landmines. Yeah. And I think that that's one of the biggest pieces.

12:19 It's not even so much of what to do. It's what not to do can oftentimes be more, more important. Yeah. And then the last piece, and I think this is more of just us as a company as well as how we want to roll things with the podcast. Yeah. I believe we have 75% of pretty much every piece somebody would need to run a kick-ass coaching business. And then the other really cool part of that is I also believe the 25% that perhaps isn't our bread and butter golden nuggets that makes us magic. We have all the people. We have all the different systems and tools at our disposal because we've been in the game and because of the seats that we've sat in. So when we look at somebody like Tony Robbins, he had a team of 600 people helping run that company.

13:02 that's crazy. Like 600 people that you have to manage for a coaching business is really what it was. So yes, he has events and he has products and all these things, but I can't tell you how many people we've spoken with and coaches that are like, I'm going to be the next Tony Robbins. It's like the dude's got 40 years of runway out in front of you. He's a multi-billionaire at this point. He's got 160 plus companies and he's got an army. Yeah. That are all the experts. Yeah. Kind of like when Michael Jackson wanted a drummer, like he got the best drummer because he was freaking Michael Jackson. That's right. You know, so when you have those dynamics, when you're a party of one, when you're a business of one, you're a solopreneur or what we like to call our woopreneurs, right? That's right. There's this dynamic of needing to be a Jack or Jill of all trades.

13:46 Yeah. Yeah. And the biggest piece is making sure your energy is going into the right things that will actually get you clients, that will actually get you paying clients, that will actually get you amazing clients that you want to work with. Yes. I love that. And I think a couple of things that are really important to say, you know, you said it as we were just talking offline before we got started, you were talking about compressing decades into days, right? And that's a big part of what we want to be able to do for you on this podcast is, you for better or worse, we have seen it all. Like we have seen massive success. We've seen massive failure. And that's both. Listen, we're not shy in being transparent. We've seen it in other companies and other coaches.

14:29 We've lived it. We've been at the bottom of the barrel. We've been at the top of the mountain. We've been everywhere in between. And we've worked with people that are all along that spectrum as well. And one of the things that I love about... our decision to do this podcast is that I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that is going to save you so much time and effort. And that's what I want. Like if I could have saved myself. So much of the time and effort that I spent going in directions that didn't serve me or my business, if I could have saved myself at times where I thought I was giving the right advice and guidance and coaching to other people, if I could have saved them from some of the tough times that we didn't know any better about at that point, I would do it.

15:19 And that's a big part of why we're doing this is we want to shortcut this for you. And the other piece is this. I love that you talk about the partners because one of the things that we decided when we came together in building Empire Partners and why we called it Empire Partners is not just because there are three of us, our cohort, Mikey, not here today. But we called it Empire Partners because we didn't want to just be the figureheads standing up, waxing poetic about how amazing we were and having all the answers and all the things. We are both passionate about working with amazing people and amazing human beings. And I think that's one of the things that makes us really good at what we do is that we don't need to have all the answers.

16:04 Neither of us have a need for that. Quite frankly, I'm more interested in finding the people that are better than me. at various parts of our business or serving our clients or any of those things. And so it's one of the things that I love is that we will go out and make partnerships and relationships with literally the best of the best. And that's exactly what we've done over many years now. We've got a Rolodex that goes deep with the best in this industry. And I'm excited to bring you those people because this isn't about us and us just blowing hot air every week. It's about... Yes, sharing with you the things that are working for us and our clients. But in addition to that, it's really bringing those brilliant people on here and getting to pick their brains and getting their strategies and their ideas and their thoughts on what's impactful.

16:53 So I love that. And that I think is the part that excites me the most about this is one distinction or one golden nugget can transform everything. an entire business. It can transform an entire person's life experience. It can literally transform generational wealth. All it takes is one nugget of like, Oh, I didn't know that. Oh my gosh. I've been going left this whole time. I just needed to go right. And I think that there's some really cool, I mean, I was, I was looking this morning at our guest list of who we've got teed up for this podcast. series so exciting it's ridiculous it's ridiculous and it's one of those things was it russell brunson who sold his rolodex i think at one point for like a hundred thousand bucks where he's like hey you want access to my people i was looking at our rolodex for just this podcast i'm like holy crap it's bananas it is bonkers yeah it's bananas yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be great It's exciting.

17:46 So if you're here right now, buckle up because it's going to be awesome. And we're not going to start slowly either. Episode number one is a really, really big guest. And he is hotter than a firecracker right now in the world of personal branding. I'll just leave it at that. You'll have to, you know, that's what we call in broadcasting a tease, friends. But I want to cap this discussion off about why people should be here with what our vision for the podcast is and how we're going to roll this out. What you, the listener, can expect from us as we get this baby launch. So number one, our mission and our vision for this is very simple. We want this to be the single most impactful podcast for coaches that want to build a profitable, successful, sustainable coaching business.

18:35 Period. End of story. That's the vision. The way that we're going to accomplish that, we're going to... We've got a little bit of a varied format. I think you're going to absolutely love it because it's not going to be the same thing every week. We're going to have a lot of expert interviews. That's going to make up probably more than 50% of the episodes that we do. We will do some solo casts where we're going to talk you through some strategies, talk you through some tactics, sometimes share some stories. Lord knows, you know... Neither of us has a shortage of those, especially Brooke, when it comes to coaching. Shout out to my buddy Trey right now who loves Brooke's stories maybe more than anybody on the planet. Love you, Trey.

19:15 And we're going to do live coaching sessions. Here's another piece. One of the things that people come to us for as a business is high-end consulting. And again, we're very fortunate to work with some 7, 8, 9-figure coaching companies and consulting in their business. And we also have a mastermind where we work with coaches that are still on their way to those kinds of numbers. And one of the things that we really wanted to do on this podcast is give a space where we could do some hot seat and bring some coaches on here. and talk business and talk about what your roadblocks are and talk about what your big dreams are and where's the gap and what are you missing? And so there is going to be an opportunity for that.

19:57 And there will be a link to apply for hot seats too, by the way. Go ahead, Brooke. Yeah. And I was just going to share it. So growing up, my dad was a pastor and my mom remarried an atheist. So we'll save that for another episode. Another story for another day. We'll spill the beans on that. But my dad used to always say something, which was A wise man learns from his own mistakes. A really wise man learns from everyone else's mistakes. And so I think that there's so much power. I love the fact you just brought up the fact we're going to be doing hot seats. If you can hear through other coaches' experiences of what they're doing right, that you might perhaps not be doing. Or they might have tripped on a landmine and you want to know, I don't want to step there. So I think that there's so much value that's going to come from those sessions down the road.

20:38 I couldn't agree more. And I think part of that is us utilizing each other. That's why we're here, you guys. And that's really why Empire Partners as a company exists is to utilize the collective to get farther faster. That's just the truth. It's the truth for us as individuals, as a company, and it's true for you and it's true for the Empire community as a whole. So we're very excited to continue to build on that. We're also going to share a lot of wins. You know, we love, love, love sharing wins. And I think that building up any kind of business, doesn't matter if it's coaching or anything else, can often be a lonely place. And it can often be a place where the only thing that we focus on is the shit that's going wrong and what we feel like we're failing at.

21:22 And so we are going to share wins on this podcast, which we're very excited to be able to do. We're going to share your wins. We're going to share some of our client wins. We're going to share our wins. You know, we want to make sure that we really spotlight the things that are going to keep us going every day because it's not easy. We're going to have opportunity for you guys to send in Q&A where you send in coaching questions and we will get them answered for you. And then in addition to that, we're also going to put out a short podcast. Every Friday, it's going to be our, you know, kind of our Friday five. I don't know what we're going to name it, if that's going to really be it or not. Hopefully, it'll be something more exciting than that. But I like that Friday. I don't know. You know, yeah, maybe Ryan's Fast Five for Friday, whatever. So that's really the rundown, though.

22:04 It's going to be a varied approach. I think you're going to absolutely love it. And in addition to that... We want to hear from you. This is not for us. Outside of the fact that I will say selfishly, one of the things I'm super excited about, I love learning. You know me. Like I am. We both do. We both love learning and we love talking to people that are incredible at what they do. And I will say selfishly, I'm like stoked to do this podcast because while we know every single person that we're bringing on the podcast, I can't wait to extract even more from them because... than I already have. And I guess it's selfish from that reason. But we really want this to be for you. And so we want to hear from you.

22:44 We want your feedback on what do you want more of? What do you need more of in order to be successful? That's something that's an open line of communication from you to us at all times to tell us what you're loving, what you don't really care for, what... What you'd love to hear more of, what you'd love to hear less of. At the end of the day, we want to serve you at the highest level possible in the best way possible. And we're excited to have the opportunity to do exactly that. Anything you want to add on that, buddy? Yeah, no, just got one piece, which is we're not a backseat driver on this thing. Like we're in the game. So anything that we're going to be sharing is not just going to be theory or we're not going to be just sitting there just spitting out information we picked up somewhere along the line.

23:29 We're bringing people that we're working with. We're bringing strategies that we ourselves are implementing. And if we talk about new stuff, we'll let you know like, hey, we haven't personally tested this yet. However, this sounds really interesting. Right. So we'll be very transparent about. what we're bringing to the table. But I just think it's important for everybody to know that we're not just kicking out information. Like we're literally in the game and we're playing. I couldn't agree more. Yep, yep. I love it. So the last piece I wanna share before we button this thing up is really just the cadence of this podcast. And as we launch here, we're gonna have three episodes available to you, inclusive of this one. And you can expect four episodes a month. We'll have one new episode every single week. And you can expect that like clockwork going forward.

24:12 So we're super excited that you're here. Brooke, I'm super excited to be doing this with you, bro. This is going to be so much fun. We're excited for all the guests that are going to be on. Buckle up, get ready. And please, please, please get ready to submit some feedback as well. We'd love to hear from you in terms of what you want, what you need, people that you'd like to hear from, all of that good stuff. We're not just going to take it into consideration, but that's really going to be the driver behind the show is serving you in the best way and at the highest level. possible. So with all that being said, this is the end of episode zero of the Coaching Equation podcast. Thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you on the flip side for episode one.

24:53 Rock on. 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.