Path to Mastery: How to Survive the Startup Phase and Avoid the Fatal Mistakes That Kill 90% of New Coaching Businesses

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.

0:41 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. And today kicks off a momentous occasion, my friends. We have had a lot of requests since we started talking about the path to mastery and the frameworks around it and understanding where you are on the path. I've had a lot of requests from people who really want to know more about where they are right now and what they got to do to get to the next level. So this is actually Episode 1 in a 4-part series where we are going to really unpack every single stage of the Path to Mastery, where the stuck points are, what you should be doing, and also share some stories from our own personal experiences.

1:23 Some personal, some working with clients. of what not to do and some of the amazing things that can happen when you're really in congruence in the level that you are in. So without further ado, this is the startup episode of Path to Mastery. Let's dive in right here on the Coaching Equation podcast. 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. Bueno. Hola. Hello. Hola. Man, I'm so stoked to dive into this episode. We've been getting so many requests since we started talking about path to mastery in that framework. We've been getting so many requests from people who want to understand it better.

2:06 They want to go deeper. They want to know where they are. They want to know how to get to the next level. And so this is actually going to be episode one in a four part series where we're going to break down each stage of the path to mastery. And we're going to do that over the next four episodes. So just as a really quick reminder, if you're joining this episode now and you're like, well, what the fuck is path to mastery? What's this guy talking about? First of all, we did an episode on the entire Path to Mastery framework that we will link up in show notes. But in addition to that, I'll just say very quickly that the Path to Mastery essentially is what we've recognized as the sequence to success in business.

2:49 And it has four stages, startup, stability, success, and mastery. You cannot leapfrog from one to the other. You have to follow the path if you're going to actually create sustainable, scalable success. And today's episode, we're going to dig into the startup phase of the path to mastery. So with all that said, my man, I want to kind of start here. Let's talk about... I wanted to kind of talk about the things that we want to be aware of, avoid. What are the landmines, roadblocks at the startup level? What do you see here? What are the biggest mistakes that people are making at this level?

3:30 Yeah, no, it's such a good question. Have you ever seen the TV show? I think, I don't know, is it BBC? No, it's actually the History Channel, I think is what it's on. But have you seen the TV show Alone? Okay. So I know of it, but I've not watched a lot of it. So they take basically like five to 10 people and they put them in these remote areas. And then basically whoever can stay there the longest wins a million bucks or whatever the heck it is. Okay. All right. So I like to look at startup very similarly to that show. And here's the reality. The mass majority of people on that show, they tap out in the first 24 hours. And if you really look at people who don't have survival skills and if you really look at people who get lost in the forest or the desert or the tundra or whatever the heck they get lost at, the mass majority of fatalities happen in the first 24 hours.

4:18 And the reason for that is most people don't have the skills to take care of those fundamental pieces that will lead to their survival and their ability to thrive in those harsh circumstances. And so instead of going out and getting water and food and shelter and making sure that they're taken care of, they start freaking out. They run in all the directions and they don't take care of those core fundamentals. And lo and behold, that's where problems come up. Business is very much the same way. And if you look at the numbers, the statistics, I mean, the mass, I mean, it's, it's staggering how many businesses in the first year that launch that get kiboshed because people just don't know where to put their attention.

4:59 So they do everything mediocre and they get mediocre results and they never actually get things into a place where it can survive. And lo and behold, toast. I love this. Dude, way to go. You know, every once in a while, you come up with some shit. I got to have a good thing here and there. Yeah. I love this analogy, actually, because I agree. I think startup to me, the image that always pops in my head in startup is like, you know, dumped in a pool and you don't know how to swim. You're fucking flailing around arms all over the place.

5:41 You don't know what you should be doing. You're just kicking, trying to move your arms. You're taking on water, you know. And it's an interesting thing because I think that similar to what they tell you, you know, when you're in water and you need to be able to get yourself, you know, to the top and breathe and get air. you've got to calm yourself down and get back to very, very simple movements. Right. And I agree with you 100%. I think that at the startup level, the biggest danger is, is trying to go way too far, way too fast, and not really knowing.

6:25 And this, by the way, is one of the reasons that we're really excited to do these episodes is to help share with you what you should be looking out for. Because I didn't get this. I, I, I, one of the biggest reasons that I just got my ass handed to me at the beginning of my coaching business is that no one told me about any of this kind of stuff. They don't teach this. If you go get your MBA pro, like you go get your MBA from Harvard, they're not going to teach you any of this. They're either. They're teaching theory and they're teaching dynamics of business. They don't, they don't teach any of this stuff because by the time they teach it, the world's pivoted and you're learning, like you go to Harvard right now, you're learning business stuff from five, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

7:08 Right? Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. And I think at this level, it becomes like the learning curve is what ends up really biting you in the ass when you really don't know what you should be focusing on. Because here's the thing. So many people who start their businesses talk about how hard they're working and these super long days. Man, I'm working 80 hours a week. You don't understand. But on what? Yep. Was it Lincoln that said, you know, give me five hours to cut down the tree. I'll spend the first four and a half sharpening the axe. Sharpening. Yeah. Yeah. Franklin was one of them.

7:48 George Washington. George Washington. George Washington. I don't know. He was the cherry tree guy. Wasn't he? George Washington. Yeah, he was. All right. Well, we're going to go with that. I don't know. Not a history major. Yeah. You know, so yes, I agree with you. Not knowing how to, not knowing what to focus on and kind of flailing around at the beginning. Um, one of the other things I want to talk about too, in terms of mistakes is, uh, you know, is one that it's certainly not, it's certainly not like, uh, only a problem at this level. This one actually, I think, can perpetuate itself throughout all of the levels of Path to Mastery.

8:31 But... At startup level, shiny object syndrome is the kiss of death. And so often, I think we get into these positions where our fear of failure causes us to stop following through on one strategy, for example, that we've decided we're going to go. Have you seen this from people? No, yes. I shouldn't have said no. Yes. Many, many times. Honestly, I think it's probably one of the most crippling pieces to the business because we've, if we look at Pavlov's dog, right? Like we get rewarded. So where, let me reframe that.

9:12 Where we get rewarded gets repeated. And so if we look at society, we look at school, we look at parenting, we look at all these different dynamics. When we get rewarded, that behavior gets repeated. Yeah. And society at large has rewarded us for doing something new, do something new, do something new, do something new. We get a little dopamine hit, dopamine hit, dopamine hit. And the reality is if we all got rewarded for completing and not for starting something new, how much different would stuff look like? Yeah. Right. And we, we've seen, we actually saw this with one of our members recently. We had to have a come to Jesus moment of conversation. She's been for three years, uh, Getting ready to get ready, starting something new, starting something new, start, ooh, there's another squirrel to the point that we've had to ask this person to not even touch anything else in our own coursework until the previous thing was completed because it's so enticing to make that pivot like over and over and over again.

10:09 Yes. I want to look at this. I mean, we're talking a little bit generally right now. I want to look at this through a couple of the different phases of our business. So what do you see in terms of mistakes that people are making? And let's actually, we'll kind of lump sales and marketing together here, even though they are completely separate things. But what do you see in terms of big mistakes that people make in sales and marketing at startup? I'm about to piss a lot of people off. Get ready. Here comes the hammer. Doing what's fun versus doing what's necessary. So the amount of times we've had people that are like, oh, I need to get sales like now.

10:53 I need to get two to three sales. And they go do the passive thing. They go send the emails or they go do a social media post. Instead of picking up the damn phone and calling somebody, it's doing the, oh, I'll send a text message just because if they tell me no, that fear of rejection is not going to hurt nearly as bad. Right. Whereas if you call them and they don't answer, you take it personally as if like you, you know, you flipped them the bird or you said they had an ugly baby or something. Like doing the things that are passive to avoid that potential failure is the kiss of death when you're in that startup phase. Because you're hoping to God that people are going to just want what you have and they're going to throw money at you for what you have to help them get out of the hole.

11:37 But you've got to do the hard thing in order to get the hard result. Yeah. And so what I see time and time again on the marketing and the sales front is they will spin in circles on making their marketing just right, on making their program just right, on getting their sales stuff. I need to know exactly everything they're going to potentially say before I pick up the phone. Toast. Bombs dropped on you. Yep. So true. And I, yeah, you, you get, I mean, you said it a minute ago, but you, you, it, people get so much into that getting ready to get ready phase and they, they, they jump into the when then syndrome, you know, when blank happens, then I'll go blank, but not yet, not yet.

12:19 You know you know, we've worked with people that have taken frigging six months to decide on a fucking shade of green for crying out loud. I mean, To that end, we've – and this is probably opening another can. I mean, we've seen other members that have spent four years just trying to perfect their offering, like actual content. We'll probably open that here in a second. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that, you know, well, you said it really well, doing what's fun instead of what works. And, you know, when you look at some of these other things, I think one of the biggest keys that I look at, too, one of the biggest mistakes is not realizing that even though at startup, basically, you just bought yourself a job.

13:04 That's really what you've done because you're probably doing everything and some of it not very well. Yeah. But you basically bought yourself a job. And one of the hardest things at the very beginning, one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make, that's not tangible, by the way, is not recognizing that they've now got to actually be a business owner. Hmm. Spot on. And even though, like, yeah, at the beginning, you may, if you, especially if you've never done this before, you may not know what the hell that is. Like, how do I even act like that? Right? But it's the pure realization. People carry an employee mentality into, you know, this phase.

13:45 And it's one of the things that gets people actually stuck in startup is beyond the sales, beyond the marketing. Beyond the operations, not being able to move from, you know, you know, off of that identity of employee. I want to double click on a piece of that for a moment, because I think it's really important because when we're in the game or when we're inside the jar, I'm going to use a cliche metaphor. We're inside the jar. We can't see the label, but let's, let's hop out of this. Let's be Tinkerbell. Let's get out of the jar for a moment. We're looking at the jar. So if we looked at other people who are starting their business, or they were caught in that startup phase for a window of time, let's be real about it.

14:25 Most people are in a J O B what we call the journey of the broke. And they launch a coaching or they launch a training or they launch a book or a podcast, or they want to impact humanity in some capacity. So they launched their own business. Okay. So they're spending the day, their normal working hours and a job they don't like. It was the catalyst to do something different. So the likelihood that they're going to do something they don't like all day to then go home and do their side hustle, are they going to go do the stuff that they don't like doing with it? Are they going to want to have the contrast of that J-O-B and they're going to go do the stuff that they like to do? And this is why they get trapped. They go do the stuff that's fun, but it doesn't usually turn the needle.

15:06 Yep. Yep. It's so true. It's so true. And I would say just one other thing, we've actually got a couple of really good stories of people that we've worked with that are cautionary tales for this stage. But before we do, one of the things that I would just say like right out of the gates, straight up from somebody who has spent... hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting help. The biggest mistake that I made at the very beginning of this game was not getting help right away from somebody who really had what I wanted. and who really knew better. When you're in the startup phase, it's so interesting because I kind of look at it.

15:49 I played golf for most of my life and used to be a really good golfer. These days, it's hit or miss because I don't play a lot. But anyway... You know, one of the things I used to hear people say all the time is, you know, lesser players would talk about their golf clubs and they'd go, oh, yeah, you know, I just I've got this shitty set of clubs because like, look, I'm not good enough to have, you know, a $750,000 set of golf clubs. I mean, I'm not good enough to have my clubs get, you know, custom fit, whatever. Here's what's really interesting about that. It sounds good on paper. Like, oh, I'm not good enough to go spend the money.

16:31 Except that if you suck, you need better clubs way more than I do, bro. Way more. Like, literally, if you suck, you absolutely should go get your clubs custom fit. You absolutely should go spend some extra money on your golf clubs because in truth... You need more help. You need more than just natural ability to get you through in that game. And it's one of the things that I see at the startup level. People run around and I see it all the time, bro. I don't know if you do, but I see people with this badge of honor that they wear on there. You know, right here where it's like, oh, I'm going to know. This sounds great, but no, I'm going to try to figure it out on my own and la la la.

17:15 Okay, you do that. Um, it's the worst, it's the worst time to not have help. I want to draw the parallel on that just because, you know, in our world, we, there's the four core areas that we like to focus on, right? Our four pillars, marketing, sales, fulfillment, and leadership. Yeah. Yep. And I just want to draw the thread for what you just mentioned, right? So how many people do we see that launch their business and they immediately go, they, Oh, Oh, I've got this little money in savings. I'm going to go create some ads because if I can throw money at some ads, I'll get some leads. And surely if I have leads, like I have the most beautiful baby on earth, everybody's going to pay for my baby. Right? So they think that the ad will give them a paying client and they melt that money and then they're pissed or they go out and they generate a couple And those are the highest quality leads you're ever going to have as those referrals.

18:10 And because they don't really understand the sales process, they burn those leads that are the highest quality because they're not equipped. They have the golf clubs that are not sized properly. They go hit the ball on game day and they're like, why am I in the freaking water? Why did the Gators grab my ball? hook pretending like I know what the hell I'm talking about. So, um, when it comes to fulfillment, there's a lot of people that do a couple of different things. Either we see one of two things. One is they get lost in just getting so much damn training that they are on the track of like, I'm on the life journey of certifications and I'm just going to train and train and train and train and train and train and train. And then they'd never do anything with it.

18:51 Information junkie. The other side of that is the people who go, I did a weekend certification on personality assessments. I'm good. I can coach anybody. Immediately, right? So there's these different dynamics that come into the fold. And we just want to make sure everybody knows whether it's marketing, sales, fulfillment, and leadership. You got to know where the heck you are right now and what stuff you should be focusing on. So again, it's just like that same parallel to... are you getting heat shelter food water like you've got to have those four components if you don't have those four things checked off you will die in the game of business yep yep whoa people are like you went like really extreme just then like damn now people are dying I mean shoot when we were with Tony he was talking about businesses for gladiators right like you go in and you either come out victorious or you're beheaded like that's that's the world we're in a hundred percent a hundred percent So let's talk a little bit about some of these client stories that we've got.

19:54 So let's just start with one. We'll call her Amanda. Amanda. Amanda. And I'm like, cause I know we mixed the names up here. Who, who you, you kicked me off with Amanda. Cause I'm like, Oh shoot. Which one is Amanda? Well, uh, so Amanda, Amanda got in the game and, um, has basically for the, it's, I suppose it's been probably for Amanda now, maybe about, what do you think? Three, four years. Yes. Okay. So Amanda is our mega perfectionist. Hmm. And she heard somewhere at some point in time that she had to do an eight week program and she shouldn't have a program that's longer than eight weeks.

20:37 And it's got to be eight weeks and it has to rock their world. It's got to be transformational. And you've got to add so much value in those first eight weeks in order for them to hire you again. So guess what she's been doing for the last four years? Now, keep in mind, Amanda has her PhD in psychology. So guess what she's been trying to figure out how to do for the last four years? How the heck do I cram my entire PhD into this eight week course? And dear God, every slide's got 50 different line items and there's like paragraphs on paragraphs and it is the fire hose of content. And because she can't compress eight years into eight weeks, she's spinning out of orbit because dear God, if I can't add enough value, I shouldn't even launch.

21:23 Now guess here's the real reality of this. She's never tested her offer. She's been spinning around on this coursework outline. She's never recorded anything. She keeps, she's changed her brand 15 times since Sunday. She keeps changing her client target avatar because why? Because she's never tested it. So every time she goes back to her content, she's like, Ooh, well, this is for a different person. And she wants her course to be perfect for everyone on earth and nothing's actually been sold. And here we are. Okay. Not a good spot to be in because, you know, it kind of like – And what's very interesting actually about Amanda is that she has had to go back and get the J-O-B again.

22:14 And by the way, they're so like – That's okay. That's totally okay. In entrepreneurship, you're going to have to do all kinds of shit. Sometimes going back and getting a J-O-B is okay. What isn't super awesome is having to go back and get a J-O-B because you weren't willing to take imperfect action. It's one thing. to have to go back and get a J-O-B because you are taking imperfect action, you're getting after it, and circumstantially, it's just what you got to do. That's cool. Do it. But it's no bueno when you're in a spot where you're taking, you know, you're unwilling to take imperfect action, and you're waiting for things to be perfectly aligned before you actually jump.

22:57 So... That's a really good one. Let's move on to our next little case study here. We'll call her Stacy. Okay. So this one we actually see. Well, I want to put this in a different way. You actually won't see this. as much as it actually happens. So this would be attuned to the amount of seeds that get put in the ground that start growing and perhaps they grow the wrong direction and they never break the surface of the ground. And the reason for that is right before they're about to break the surface of the ground, they quit.

23:39 Stop watering. Yep. Stop watering. They let the mental weeds take over them and keep them from ever, ever reaching that sunlight. And when we see this in business is where people are working their ass off and they're getting all the pieces put together and they spend all the money on their branding and on their website and they've got their technology built together and they're just about ready to go to market. And guess what happens? Yeah. Those damn imposters wreak havoc that, you know, the little angel on one side of your shoulder and a little devil on the other side, the devil goes, Ooh, I've got you in my clutches. And they scream inside their head. You're not good enough. You're going to be judged.

24:20 No, one's going to want what you've got. What on earth are you thinking of doing? Who the hell's going to want to buy this? And guess what happens? They shut it down and they don't even shut it down. They just let it float into the ethers and it drifts away and their dreams and their vision of what they really wanted to do and all those people that they really could have helped. They get caught in the current and they get swept down the beach to be lost into the middle of the ocean. I've got a lot of morbid stuff today. Sorry. You do, man. Damn. Did you like watch like Gladiator or something last night? I think my wife spiked my coffee this morning, man. I got a little extra juice in the juice. Yeah, you do. Man. But it's real.

25:00 Like this, I cannot tell you how many times people will put all the pieces of the puzzle together and then they just go, failure to launch. Wasn't there a movie, Failure to Launch? There was. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This one, I feel like too, is so sneaky because what happens, it's such a form of self-sabotage and it's always more deeply rooted. This is not, by the way, this is not a typical conscious decision, which is yet another reason why you want help because you want someone who can recognize it in you and actually call it out. But so often it's the equivalent of being on a football field and you are literally on the one yard line.

25:48 And instead of hauling ass into the end zone, you just like lay down at the one yard line. Right. Right before you're about to score. And my best, my favorite analogy for this, I think I heard this from Ed Milet and Lord knows where he heard it from because I don't think it was his originally. But is is it's the analogy of the pinata. It's like how many how many whacks is it going to take to bust open the pinata? You have no fucking idea. It could be one. It could be 10. It could be 50. You have no clue. The only thing that's certain is if you stop swinging, you are never opening that motherfucker ever.

26:32 uh so such a good metaphor too yeah i like that one a lot and so you know don't do that and recognize by the way if you find yourself in a spot where you literally just like you think you gotta throw in the towel all of a sudden right before things are about to launch or get good carry the ball across the finish line for crying out loud at least give yourself a chance Since you opened the metaphor there, and I know this is another metaphor you've shared. Actually, you just shared this on stage this last week. So, you know, the metaphor of baking a cake, you know, if you switch up the ingredients, you might have the right ingredients, but if you put them in at the wrong time, totally different outcome, right?

27:13 So you take baking a cake. If we switch the flour and the frosting in terms of the sequence, we're going to switch the flour and the frosting. This is what happens so often with startup, right? Is we have all these people who come into startup who are so excited. They want success. They want freedom. They want the extra income. They want the impact. They want their voice to be heard. They want their authentic self out there and they want to skip. startup. They want to skip stability. They want to skip success. They want to go straight the frick to mastery because they believe that they're, yeah, send me to the moon. And what ends up happening is they get their, their ingredients out of sequence. And then that voice creeps in that they're not good enough because they don't have the successes reflected back to them to show them that they actually are where they need to be to build upon.

27:56 And, And they start building the roof before they've built the foundation. And that's really where startup becomes so critical. You've got to have those four pillars. You've got to have your marketing, your sales, your fulfillment, and your leadership in the right order with the right foundation so that you're not building on a house built on sand. Ooh, now I'm going biblical. But we've got to have that proper foundation there, right? So, yeah. And, you know, I want to get with the short time that we have, I want to get into a couple of stories about people that have really done it right. But before we do, I just want to pre-frame this by saying, look, at this level, some of the key things that we know through a lot of experience, both doing it ourselves and watching others and coaching others and mentoring others through this process is, You got to make relationships at this level.

28:43 Brooke talked about it earlier. You know, you think you got to just do the passive things. No, you got to make relationships. You got to, you know, knock on the proverbial doors. You got to have more conversations. You know, you need to make more offers. You need to talk to the people that are in your life, your warm network. Find those opportunities that way. You've got to take imperfect action. You've got to get beyond the perfection fallacy. Take imperfect action. In your marketing, you really, really, really got to focus on your core branding and messaging. You got to know what is the offer? How is it helping people? What are the what's your ideal client avatar?

29:25 You know, who who are you serving and what are their biggest pain points and what do they really want? And as a leader, you've really you've got to be committed, as I said earlier. to making that shift from employee mindset to I am a business owner. I might be a business owner of one. I might need to just be leading myself and my clients right now, but I'm going to be a business owner of one. So we've got two really powerful examples before we wrap up this episode. Um, One, I want you to talk about this one, but Josh is just an amazing human being and has such a good example of everything on the good side that we've talked about today.

30:05 Yeah, and I'll give you the short and skinny version of this, even though he's tall and mega muscular. He's built like a brick house. Dude came from the military, right? He was actually the top drill sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, which is fantastic. So he came in with a very different mindset. He came in and literally said, I am not going to question or balk at the recipe. You tell me what to do. And I will do it. Now, I don't know if he was always wired that way or if he got conditioned to be that way because he was in the military. But long story short, in the last, I would say, nine to 10 months, because he's followed step by step by step, he's not only has he launched his website and his branding, he wrote and published his book.

30:54 Yeah. He also, he launched his, his backend course. Well, he launched his primary course and a backend course. He's got over, over 15 one-on-one paying clients. He just booked his third paid speaking gig. Okay. Now, that on the surface is badass just to begin with, but here's the kick. He's been super proactive with his family. He's been super proactive with the nonprofit charity that he works with. And here's the other kick that no one would know on the outside. He's been really battling his health this last year, like really on the struggle. Yes. Yeah. But he stayed the course. He followed the recipe to the T and he's getting the results that are just crushing. He is a perfect example.

31:35 Sorry. Go ahead. I'd love to hear one other one just because it's so critical. And I know you, you worked with, uh, closely with another gentleman who, who participated and followed, followed the sequence. Yeah. Followed the sequence. Yeah. Scott, you know, came from a really deep background in the insurance industry and had a fabulous business in that industry. And one had a desire to create something different. And so he launched a brand new program. Here's what he did. Once again, followed the recipe exactly the way that I told him to follow it. They did all of the work on the branding and the ideal client avatar and figuring out the problems that they were going to fix.

32:16 And we did research on that. We gave out surveys. And he went direct to the market that he had... And he offered the new program. He did it in the way of a case study. He knew, by the way, he put it out there. In fact, we had multiple conversations of like, oh, there are all these things, these variables that we don't know right now. We know that it's going to be messy. We know there are going to be things that we're going to learn, but we're going to do it anyway. He followed exactly that sequence. He launched a brand new program that he's never run before to an audience that didn't know him for this type of work. And $21,000 to $25,000 without spending a single dime on ads.

32:58 It was a no brand... And by the way, no sales calls. So once again, we had a recipe for that. He followed the recipe. He had his foundations in place. And most importantly, with Scott, what I want to hit on is he knew he was going to have to take imperfect action. And that's what he did. That's what he was committed to. And as a result, he got, you know, he got an incredible outcome on the backside of it. The cool part is they totally retooled it after they went and did that because they learned a whole bunch of shit. with that first cohort. So not afraid to pivot as well. So I was going to say one key piece of that too. And he didn't go spend years and years and years perfecting the thing on the other side. He did that for six to eight weeks. He went, launched, tested it, followed the recipe, got feedback, retooled, adjusted.

33:42 So I love that he didn't burn time. And that's, that's usually the kiss of death. And just like, if you get lost in the forest, the thing that kills you is time. The longer you're there, the higher chances are that you're going to get whacked. 100%. Well, I don't want to get waxed, so I'm not going to hang out here any longer. Stay tuned for the next episode. First things first, you're going to want to look out for the next episode. But in between now and the next episode, I want you to take some action today. And I want you to go grab the quiz that comes along with the Path to Mastery. It is our most powerful diagnostic tool to date. And we just released it at this event that we spoke at this past weekend at BookThinkers in Boston. So, go to www.empirepartners.net forward slash quiz, empirepartners.net forward slash quiz, and go take the Path to Mastery quiz.

34:31 We'll link it up in the show notes for you as well. And stay tuned for the next episode where we get into the stability phase and what to expect there. Brooke, great stuff today, brother. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Coaching Equation podcast. Until next time, take care. Take care, everybody. 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'd 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.