Path to Mastery: Mastery Level - What It Really Takes to Build a Legacy Beyond Revenue

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 is the day, my friend, episode four of four in our Path to Mastery podcast series. This is the summit, the tippy top. the mastery episode. And listen, here's the thing. Most entrepreneurs think that getting to the success level is the finish line. And for a lot of them, it is. They hit their numbers, they build up their team, they free up their time. And then some, not all, some wonder why they're still not quite fulfilled. And here's the thing, if you've been following this series, you know, as we've broken down the four levels of the path to mastery, which by the way, just a reminder, Startup, stability, success, and today, mastery.

1:33 This is the level that most will never reach. And it's not because they can't. It's because the game changes so completely and the fuel... that got you to success isn't going to carry you into mastery. In addition to that, it's really, it's an interesting choice that we have to make. And by the way, this episode isn't going to prove you right or wrong on that choice. It's not about that. What it is about is giving you the clear picture of what that choice is. And if you choose it, what it's really going to take to get to that rare air of mastery.

2:14 Buckle up and let's dive in. This is the Path to Mastery Mastery Series episode. It's 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. Dude, are you ready for the big one, the big enchilada? I think so. This will be fun. The big enchilada. Now, shit. That just made me start thinking about margaritas. Now I'm all off in left field. Now I'm thinking about margaritas. Mole. All right. Coming back on track.

2:54 Okay. We're at Mastery. The tippy top of the path to Mastery. If you have not yet listened to the episodes on startup, stability, and success, please circle back to those episodes first. But just as a reminder, Path to Mastery has four stages, startup, stability, success, and mastery. Today, we are here to talk about mastery. This one in particular, we spent a little bit of time discussing how we want to go through this. Most people that are listening to this, it's more so going to be what are we looking to aspire to as business owners, as opposed to what are things that like any of us can identify with, per se.

3:38 So I feel like I want to kind of start here, man. Yeah. We talked about success last time. That in and of itself is an elevated level that most don't reach. And now we're in even more rarefied air when we're truly talking about mastery. So I'd love to hear from your perspective. What are some of the things that you think are necessary to be able to actually make it to that tippy top level where we're chasing great, the dust on top of extraordinary? Yeah. And I think there's, there's a few criteria.

4:19 I think when I, if I really were to simplify it and it's like most simplest of terms is you become the de facto in that niche or that space. So as an example, like, you know, we did a bunch of work back in the day with Brian Buffini. It's like, when you think of what is the number one coaching company in the real estate space? Brian Buffini. So it's the thing that everyone else is compared against, whether that's the size of their business, whether that's the quality of their outputs, whether that's the amount of revenue that they do. And again, this is an interesting one, because if we're trying to make a definition for everybody under the sun, people's definitions might be different, right? Yep. But my, my world, the way I look at it, it's like when you've reached mastery, you are, you're the one who, uh, who breaks the four minute mile that everyone else is, is chasing.

5:09 Right. So like Tony Robbins would be in terms of the personal development world. He is there. There's no one that's even in the realm of how big he is and how, how big the company is, how many people they reach each year, how much revenue they generate. So like that to me is somebody who's reached mastery in his niche. Yeah, I would agree with that. And I would also just say, you know, going beyond the organization, if we look at the leader of the organization, we've talked about all of these identity shifts that you're making at each level, right? And now the one required here is to go from owner to transformational leader.

5:49 Tony Robbins is a transformational leader. Right. And I think that's one of the that's one of the things that I think is most important, because you can get to a level of success and and and make plenty of money. And it looks great on paper. But but truthfully, the people that I look at at mastery level in in the world of And they're organizations. This is one from a quality standpoint. If you look at an organization, I think being a transformational leader, one of the things that you do is we talked last episode about...

6:37 putting people in positions, in very skilled positions, getting elite operators in skilled positions. And I think it's doing that to the nth degree. You know, I mean, someone like Tony, as an example, has CEOs of companies that he runs. You know, so, and I think it's learning how to... put people in charge at the very highest level. And also... It's having built the skill of giving and cultivate, giving trust to those people and cultivating trust with those people so that they're trusting of you as well.

7:24 I think there's a big... This word gets thrown around a lot, but I think there's a big culture component when you get to the mastery level. Talk about that a little bit, because I think both of us have seen the inside of companies and organizations that we would consider to be at the mastery level firsthand. I think it's very unique perspective. So tell me a little bit about what you've seen culturally inside of organizations of mastery. When you get into that level that you have leaders that are leading. So this is different than putting somebody into a position where you have a manager, right? Cause like you and I've been in, we've witnessed companies that are, you know, in that 15 to 25 million mark, they in their own mind would say that they've reached a level of mastery, but then we get under the hood and we're like, well, your leaders aren't really leading.

8:10 You haven't really empowered them. Like if you stepped away, this all falls apart because there is no mission that's beyond that owner just lining their pocketbooks. So when you have a company that is transcending the owner of the company because they're working towards something and you have leaders who are leading and they're the company runs itself. Right. So using Tony as the example, most people don't know this. He literally spends maybe four days a year physically inside of that company. Right. So, you know, this is, let's call it a $200 million a year company, maybe more, maybe less somewhere in that range. But that company, he shows up and yes, he's fulfilling when he has his events.

8:52 Yes. He's producing certain marketing content, but he's in his own world. He's creating books and he's creating partnerships. He's doing his own thing to further the brand. The company itself is running without his actual day-to-day you, what are we doing? What's happening? He's not managing the company, if that makes sense. Yep. And so same thing with Buffini company, Brian Buffini doing the same thing, right? Brian's front of stage, but he has his executive team and he has his leadership team. He has, he has key personnel that is driving the growth of the company. Yep. Yep. This, this, this reminds me too of, of, you know, thinking, thinking of, of, uh, somebody like Oprah, you know, she, she, she, she, Is in meetings like one to two hours per day, but with key people, right?

9:44 Yep. In key projects. And yeah, I think that that's without question. That's a... That's a major, major, major component. I would say too that I think that this is one of the things that to me can be a constraint in terms of getting to mastery is that there are people who are at the success level who still just won't get out of their own way. Like they can't get out of their own way enough to... to let the right people in to, you know, to potentially elevate them into mastery. What's fascinating about that, too, is that you would think, you know, when we think about the term mastery, I think a lot of times we think about like individual achievers and practitioners of some kind.

10:33 We think of the Michael Jordans and the, you know, Tom Brady's of the world, you know, or something like that. But the thing is, in business, what's very different from that, that definition of mastery is in business, it's not always the most talented humans that reach a level of mastery. You know, there are a lot of people that play at the top of that pyramid who aren't even close to. to the raw talent and ability of others that are below them. The difference is they had the wherewithal to recognize when it was necessary for them to bring on other people, when it was necessary for them to, you know, what they needed truthfully to move it, you know, to move the ball down the field.

11:27 And I think going back to, you know, point... I made earlier, I think that's learning to get out of the way to some degree. It's still leading, but it's leading in a different capacity. Now you're, you're on the money. If we make a draw comparison to the previous episode, right. In success, we talked about somebody who every six months they turn their team. Right. So it's like, bring on a new team, do a certain amount of revenue, but everything was to prop themselves up. And then that team was like, well, screw you. There's nothing here. That's about growing us as a team. And then they bounce out. Yep. You look at somebody like Tony, he has an obsession for being the best.

12:07 Yeah. And it tripped my brain. The first time I was in an exec meeting with him, I'm like, he's already number one in the world in every single thing. Like highest selling books, highest grossing events, the most people who've gone through his programs, highest selling product. Like you, you lay it out. He's number one in each of those areas and his level of, of obsession and the standards that he held everybody in that room to. Hmm. I'm like, you would have thought he was just starting out where he's like, we have to be the best and we're going to do this. And it's because we'll reach more people. Like he's obsessed with a mission that goes beyond the revenue. And that's an interesting variable, right? I think when you, when you're in startup, most people are trying to figure out how do I pay the bills?

12:47 You go to stability and it's like, Ooh, how can we scale this? Or how can I wean back on how many hours I have to do? Or can I hire some people so I don't have to do the shit work? Yeah. You get to success and it's like, oh, cool. Like now there's this piece of I've got a lot of new members coming on my team and I can start to free up my time. That's why a lot of people get stuck there, right? Because the ego gets stroked. The amount of time starts to throttle back. You look at somebody like Tony who's in mastery, it requires a freakazoid level of psychology to want to actually be in that level. Oh, yeah. And he's working harder today in his seventies than he was working in his thirties because his mission is so much bigger and because it does transcend his life.

13:28 So for him, he's actually working more hours right now. Like today he will work more hours than anybody else that I know. Like he'll probably sleep four hours tonight. Like, and I'm not exaggerating and it has nothing to do with making more money. But it has everything to do with him making his legacy be what he wants it to be. And with him raising up more leaders, with him transcending where he literally wants to have impact that goes on beyond his life. It's a different animal. That is a totally different animal, dude. And I think that, that, uh, I think you can, you know, you talked about chasing revenue. I think you can get to success chasing revenue. I do. A lot of people have gotten to success chasing revenue.

14:09 Um, a lot of people have. That's actually the fuel that drives most people to get there. Right. As they are achievers that want to hit that number. And like, I need to show and prove to my mom and dad that I can make it. My teacher in elementary school is wrong, but to go from success to mastery, um, That fuel will not, it doesn't work. You can't because when the number gets satiated, you take your foot off the gas. But I interrupted you. Sorry. No, no, you're absolutely right. And I think that's the thing is just that there comes a point where there's just only so much money. If there's nothing beyond you, you know, at some point you're going to burn out or you're going to live a fucking miserable existence.

14:50 You know, and I think that... One of the other things that I see at the mastery level that I actually believe is a difference maker between success and mastery. I think that people who... I'm not going to say that people who reach success have this quality. But I think that people who get stuck in success oftentimes have stopped seeking. They have a belief that they have arrived somewhere and they start to shut down creativity and they just know, well, it's just this way. You know, how many times have we been?

15:31 Well, this is the way that we've always done things. You know, I come from... you know, a very long career in, you know, the oil and gas industry. And some of the companies that I worked with in the oil and gas industry were shit, 100 years old, 80 to 100 years old, some of the biggest energy companies in the world. And so many of them, not all of them, by the way, But so many of them got themselves stuck because they were just so attached to the way that things had been done. And from the top down, they shut down creativity because that's a top-down thing. And I think the people that truly inspire us at the mastery level, they're not stopping.

16:16 It's just like, I mean, you and I were in meetings, you know, privy to meetings with Tony this year, where, you know, that dude's brain is still cranking. You know, he's not slowing down. And I think that's the hallmark of somebody who's, you know, who's reached that level of mastery. Whereas at success, I think if you get stuck there, you've oftentimes started to shut down creativity. And you just, you know, you're kind of thinking, well, we just know how to do this and we've arrived and blah, blah. There's something within what you just said that I want to demystify or address or speak to.

16:58 There's this belief for so many people. They think that if they can get their business to a certain amount of revenue or to a certain size, that they'll be safe. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the reality is it doesn't matter how big your company gets. You can get taken out at any point in time. And it was... Yeah. I mean, you look at the biggest, I mean, how many of the biggest companies have gotten whacked? How many of the biggest countries, right? You know, our, our company name is called empire. Well, yes, it takes a whole fricking village and a lot of people with a united outcome to build an empire. How long does it take it to make an empire fall? Right. And so I want to demystify this piece where people need to realize just because you build everything properly and just because you do all the right things and because you have the right timing, it doesn't mean that you're actually ever totally insulated and protected to have a business that's forever safe.

17:52 And there's, um, I don't know if you saw the president, I forget the guy's name, the president of NVIDIA. Oh, I can't remember the guy's name. Yeah. Keep, keep going. Okay. So NVIDIA is slated. I think that, I don't even know if they, they might've already hit the trillion dollar mark as a business. Right. But here's the crazy piece when they were asking him of how he approaches his company. I don't know if you've caught, caught this recently. So he said, I did not know he approaches his company that he's always 30 days away from filing bankruptcy. Ooh. Like, think about this. This is one of the largest companies on the planet right now. This is a trillion dollar a year company.

18:35 And the CEO of the company is functioning as if they're 30 days away from filing bankruptcy. Mm hmm. That's a whole nother way of operating where when you're operating from that level and oh, by the way, there's there's there's that word again, intention. Like, you know, this is a key difference maker. You know, I think that there are people like I. I've heard Ed Milet talk about this a lot. That dude's done okay. I think I'll stick him in the mastery category. But, you know, it's one of the things I've heard him talk about where like...

19:18 he has these conversations with himself where he's still operating like, oh my God, if I don't keep rocking here, we're going to end up hungry. I think part of that to some degree is being able to not forget... you know, when things were tough, that it could literally be that close. And I think that's where some of those really, you know, some of those polarizing moments in business, we had those super awesome episodes that we did earlier this year, where we kind of showcase some of the biggest comebacks, you know, in business and the most unlikely stories of, you know, companies facing Clear, you know, certain demise.

20:03 And I think those are those moments that either tank you or propel you. Right. And I think that when they propel you, I think there are big pieces of that that you that that you don't forget. I think it's easier to operate from that standpoint when you've been through some shit. I totally agree. And I think that this kind of goes back to the same principle that came up in the success, the previous episode about success. Yep. Because once you get to mastery, it's like, okay, you might be at the top of the mountain, but to think that you're not going to have storms or that the air is going to get thin up there or that there might not be an earthquake or a flood. Yeah.

20:45 There's a different level of intention. So this word is going to come up again and again. You have to be obsessed with innovating and optimizing. That's the only way you can stay there. Otherwise, the life cycle, I mean, shoot, how many businesses have we seen where the life cycle of the business trails the life cycle of the owner? Yeah. Like in their own time, like Napoleon Hill was the biggest, the biggest in the game when he was alive. And he was still pretty big after his, his stuff has trailed for quite a long time. But you look at somebody like Jim Rohn, he was huge in his day and age, but the business is not there anymore. Like his content got bought by success magazine.

21:27 So they own all the royalties to his content, but the business itself is gone. It's because he's gone and didn't build a business that transcended him being on a stage or him creating, creating information. And so there's this piece too of like, okay, if you really want to aspire to build a business that is at a level of mastery, right? It is going to require a completely different level of fuel, a completely different mission, a completely different leader that has to come and play. And the reality is most people, I think quite a few people can get to success. Like to your point, like if they're chasing the almighty dollar or if there's a certain level of business they want to build.

22:07 Yep. Very few, very, very few are going to have the heart drive, the psychological drive. And honestly, you've got to be a wee bit crazy to actually want to go that distance. I totally agree. And, you know, we, this word got brought up in the last episode, but it's legacy, right? Yeah. It's, it's when you're transcending now being not just a transformational leader, but a legacy builder. Yeah. Because that's a different, that's a different story, you know? And, and I think, I think that... I think that this is one of the things that I think all of us, it's very interesting as we're, you know, in the final episode of this series.

22:55 You know, if you're reflecting back and wherever you are right now in this journey, thinking about what you want, here's the beauty of this. There's nobody here telling you that mastery is what you ought to aspire to. I mean, you can aspire to whatever level you want. But when we're talking about business, I think that there is a level of crazy. Because number one, as we've documented so many times on this show, you got to be fucking batshit crazy to play this game in the first place. And if you actually have the cojones to hang out and keep playing the game, even after you've gotten your teeth kicked in several times, that's a whole nother level of crazy.

23:46 And if you happen to be lucky enough to get to success and then go, okay, okay, Like, I'm willing to go the extra distance to truly do something that's unforgettable. It is a unique human. And what I think, what's really interesting about it, I want to hear your thoughts on this, but my belief... is that... Because I think there's this perception that those people... Oh, they're just wired that way. They're just born that way. No, they're not. I don't believe they are. My belief is that...

24:27 You know, there are moments of choice. And I think that the people who truly chase mastery and achieve it are the people going back to, you know, someone like a Tony Robbins or, you know, or an Ed Milet. or somebody like that, are people that feel a responsibility. They now make a choice because they feel like they have some sort of a fiduciary responsibility to move this into another level. Uh, what do you think about that? Do you think this is something that people develop over time through choices or what do you think?

25:09 I think that Tony was definitely an overachiever from the get go. He's definitely type A and he's, he's wired in the sense of, uh, He wants to kick ass and take names and he wants to do amazing things. But what I would say is he has conditioned the heck out of his nervous system. But even you use some languaging in there that I agree with a thousand percent, which is he is not running companies. He is not making money. He is not doing businesses. He's on a mission. And so he sees these companies and these businesses and the people that are working for him as vehicles to help live out a mission. Right. And to kind of put this into context, so let's say we take somebody who's at a stability level, like, oh, what's your outcomes for this year?

25:55 So we're, for those of you that don't know, we're very big on quarterly planning as well as annual planning. Okay. If you ask somebody at each of the different levels, if you ask somebody at startup what their outcomes are for the year, what do you think some of the answers might be? So just role play with me here, Ry. Okay. Okay, so we're talking about outcomes for the coming year. Yeah, outcomes for the coming year. You ask somebody who's in startup, what do you think their outcomes for the coming year are gonna be as it relates to their business? I need more leads. Okay, perfect. That's my outcome. Is that an outcome? We can put the, I don't know why you sound like a valley girl, but we'll put that there for a minute. Okay. So that would be, I agree with you. That would be a startup thing.

26:36 I need to have, I need to have more leads. Okay. What would a stability person come in saying that they think their outcome is for the year? 200K a month or 200K in my business, 250K in my business next year. Okay. And they probably say, I need to hire somebody because I'm doing too much, right? I probably say, yes, you're probably accurate on the revenue goal. They're probably like, I need somebody to help me, right? Yep. Okay. What do you think at success? At success, I don't really want to work that much anymore. And I want to 10x my revenue. I agree. 10x my revenue and I need a bunch of people to do all this stuff that I don't want to do anymore.

27:19 Like I need to cut my hours in half. Try and find a way to free up time. Yep. Okay. So I agree with you on all those. Now I'm going to contrast that to what Tony's outcome is this year. Okay. So in Tony's meeting, he goes, my outcome this year is to feed a billion starving people. little bit different than startup stability and success, right? So like the consistent variable and those first three tiers is usually revenue driven. It's usually driven around how can I free up my time or how can I move myself up this ladder? Whereas Tony's trying to figure out How can I work with presidents of nations? How can I help with the Abraham Accords?

27:59 How can I get into the conversation with Donald Trump or with the people and the shit that's going on over in the Ukraine so we can open this up so that they can get fertilizer back so that we can feed a billion starving people in the Middle East and Africa? And he sees his companies as ways to make those connections happen. He sees those companies as ways of generating monies to be able to make that big of an impact happen. It has nothing to do with how do I hire the right people so that I can generate an extra 20% of revenue on our company so that we can increase our stock price. Yep. It's a different game. It is a different game. And I think that that is somebody, though, who has, you know, I've talked about this a lot, but one of my favorite ways of kind of talking about...

28:54 continuing to seek excellence and that kind of thing and, and, and, and chasing the bigger, you know, the bigger picture and all this stuff is the way that Ed Milet talks about getting to the end of his life and this belief that he's going to meet the, you know, the best version of himself at the end of his life. And that version of him is either going to say, man, amazing. You know, you did it. You caught me. Or like, fuck, had all these chances. Look what we could have done over here. Look what you, you know, you didn't make it, man. You didn't make it. And, but, but here's what's so interesting about this.

29:38 The average person, Brooke, is so consumed with themselves that, that they're not thinking big enough to even get to that point. Because what's fascinating about that is that the best version of yourself is likely not overly consumed with you. It rarely is. Right. If you're going beyond. Yeah. We should, we could do a whole episode on six human needs. Right. Cause when, when you move up for anybody who's done spiral dynamics, right. When you start to move up the food chain and up the different colors of how that plays, or if you're looking at six human needs, what the thing that I'll say that Tony's condition the crap out of is growth and contribution.

30:21 Yeah. And you'll notice that's the big difference as you move through the different tiers of startup stability, success, and mastery. When you move from success to mastery, there's a huge obsession with growth and how can I give back at a deeper level? That's the fuel change that happens between those two different levels. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I think, you know, one of the things I switch gears for just a second here. I think one of the things that I do want to mention is that... I want to... I not disagree at all, but I want to contrast something that you said early in the episode, which is kind of looking at like, you know, a company that other people are sort of pinpointing as sort of the, you know, the big kid on the block, so to speak.

31:13 I will also say that, you know, in my work... You can also get to be the biggest kid on the block and still... melt your business. Even at the mastery level. I worked with a company years ago. They were actually one of my longest standing clients. They were the biggest coal company in the world. And how I ended up working with them is they spun off an oil and gas division and And that kind of gave an opportunity to do some work because we didn't do anything with coal.

32:00 It was all oil and gas related. And it was so fascinating because the way that they operated from the very beginning was so not indicative of mastery. It literally actually violated so many of the things that we... talked about. So get this, like right out of the gates, one of the first things that they did was when they, when they spun off this division, uh, of, um, uh, you know, of oil and gas from the coal company, Instead of saying... And one thing, I don't want to go into the weeds here, but oil and gas and coal are very different.

32:44 They are not the same at all. The way they're extracted is not the same. The way they're talked about, the terminology, the equipment, like actually going and buying and leasing minerals, they're just vastly different. And so... for a coal company to spin off an oil and gas division, they need somebody who knows what they're doing. Well, instead of going out and hiring people who were experts in oil and gas, they literally just took rejects from the coal side and said, you know what? Why don't you, you know, you guys go over here. It was like, it was, you guys just go over here and do this thing.

33:27 And, you know, good luck. Um, so they, they don't know their ass from a hole in the wall when we first started working with these guys. And it was so frustrating because they had no clue. They came from a completely different industry, had no idea how things worked. And what was fascinating is as that division, at first, we didn't know what they were going to do with it because the first project, they were just pursuing, um, uh, natural gas that was trapped inside of these coal seams. And then they decide at one point, oh, you know what? I think we're going to do more with this deal. Well, they still didn't go out and hire better experts. They just promoted more people from inside of the coal company.

34:10 The guy who was the head of the oil and gas division had literally been the head of the Baltimore Harbor Coal Terminal. And I'm like, what in the actual fuck is happening here? And it was just chaos. But what was so interesting about this, you might be thinking, how could a company like this survive? Well, eventually they didn't. And here's what's really fascinating. The reason that they got as far as they did is that they made some... This company was over 100 years old. They were one of the biggest coal companies in the entire world. And they made some really great decisions early on where they bought property in fee.

34:56 And for those of you that don't know anything about extracting minerals of any kind from property, most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, you go to somebody who owns the property and you buy a lease from them or... If you're really going to do some damage, maybe you offer to buy some piece of it. But coal is so invasive that that's a bigger project. And for people to agree to it, I mean, in some cases, their entire property is never going to be the same ever again if they say yes. So they went off and they bought all this property in fee that they could do anything that they wanted with.

35:36 And for a while during their oil and gas years, they were able to lean on that and in the early years of the oil and gas company, because they didn't have to monkey around with people saying yes or no to an oil and gas lease. You know, I've talked a lot on this show about the relationships that I built in that work and the trust that I had to build and cultivate by, you know, showing good faith and making relationships with people. These guys were so big, they just had a reputation of pretty much go fuck yourself. We're going to do whatever the hell we want. And it worked for so long because they owned all this fee acreage. And so they got to a point where they couldn't, with oil and gas, they ran out of properties to drill.

36:23 And then all of a sudden, they had to start learning how to operate like a real oil and gas company. And they floundered around and completely failed. Yeah. And at the end of the day, that company declared bankruptcy. And they didn't go bankrupt, but they declared it and then ended up getting absorbed. Actually, just this year, finally, all their assets and stuff got absorbed by another entity. But, I mean, oh, how the mighty have fallen. Because if you look at this, at the time that I first started doing work for these guys was like 2009. So... We're, we're, what fucking year is it now?

37:05 Almost 2040. So 16 or 17 years later, but think about this for a company that had existed well over a hundred years, 16 or 17 years later to be gone. Because they didn't have good business practices. They were literally living on borrowed time. And it's a cautionary tale, man. Well, it's, it's, uh, we did a full episode. Actually, I'd encourage anybody who's listening, go find, and I just pulled it up. So episode 15, we did a whole segment on the seven triggers of a crisis. And it doesn't matter by the way, the seven triggers of a crisis.

37:47 It doesn't matter if you're at startup stability, success, or mastery. Any one of those seven things can take you out of the game. So here's kind of an important piece. We don't want to take away anybody's drive to move to the next level from wherever you're at to wherever you want to be. The reality is we want to make sure you're not just fixated on mastery, no matter where you're at, unless you're in success. If you're in success, yeah, fixate on mastery. Yep, that's right. We want you guys to be doing the decisions and the identity and the building a business based on where you are so you can get to that next tier, to that next level. Yep. And we've talked about it before, but don't switch the flour and the frosting when you're baking the cake. Like stay in the right sequence, do the right things.

38:29 If you guys are wondering where the hell are you in your business and the key areas or what should you be focusing on, what should you be doing? We have a lovely quiz that we'll, let's put it in the show notes so people can figure out where they're at and where they should be at. And shameless plug, if you guys really want to be part of a group that's fixated on moving from the level you're at to the next level, that's why we created Empire. Yeah. Right. And there are always going to be challenges. If you no longer have challenges in your business means you're out of business. You're not trying hard enough. There's gonna be moments where things are super easy and you're on easy street and it feels like everything's going your way. But guess what? Don't rest on your laurels, right?

39:10 Just like NVIDIA, like you could be filing bankruptcy in 30 days or like to your point, the gas and oil company. You'd be around for 150 years, make bad moves and not pay attention to what's going on and poof, you're out. So if you guys do want to participate and play and be in the game and level up, yeah, we're here. A couple of things that I just want to say to close this out. First of all, I want to just mention that because I would be remiss if I didn't say this. Somebody right now is misconstruing some of our thoughts and comments around this to think that we're saying you have to make a certain amount of money to be at mastery.

39:53 No, you don't. You can define your own level of mastery. There are amazing people in the world that will never even touch the kind of financial success of some of the biggest players in the game of business that are leaving legacy. And here's the other piece. I want to encourage you to listen to all four of these episodes and more so think about the tenants that we're talking about here. Think about the roadblocks and the tripwires. Think about, you know, the qualities that you need to embody today. to get to that level. And then you can truly define that for yourself.

40:34 But I can promise you that the types of people that we talked about in this episode are the types of people that you're going to want to model yourself after, regardless of whether you want 187 companies and a bazillion dollars and feed a billion people, whatever. You can leave an incredible legacy and do amazing things, get to a level of mastery in your own life. on your own terms. I wanted to say that. Lastly, we will put this in the show notes, but you should go take the Path to Mastery quiz and find out exactly where you are right now. And if you want to do that, just go to empirepartners.net forward slash quiz, empirepartners.net forward slash quiz.

41:15 And if you'd like to come out and join us and see what this whole Path to Mastery thing is about, and by the way, be part of an absolutely incredible room of entrepreneurs and heart-centered business donors and true experts in their field and get a chance to play with us and our team and all of our guest experts that we bring in. go to empirepartners.net and check out our next event. Currently, as we record this episode, in a matter of a couple of months, we're going to be at the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain in Tucson, Arizona, which is going to be off the chain. Regardless of when you're listening to this episode, though, just go to empirepartners.net forward slash event, and you can learn about our next event.

41:57 With all that said, my man, this was so good. I'm so glad we took the time to break this down. Thanks for all that you poured into this, brother. Same. Yeah. Same as he's buddy. And we hope that you, we hope that you enjoyed this series. So with all that said, it is time for us to bit of fondue. I really, yeah, I did. I did. That's how it's what they say in, in my hometown of Marseille. Okay. I got to get out of here. All right. 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.

42:38 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. .