Sustainable Business Success: Cultivate a Gladiator Mindset to Win

0:01 Welcome to The Coaching Equation, brought to you by Empire Partners and hosted by Ryan Lang and Brooke Bishop. Our mission is to help you build a profitable and impactful coaching business by cutting through the noise and all the expert advice to deliver tried and true, actionable insights that you can deploy in your business today. Each week, we bring on expert guests, unveil cutting-edge tactics and strategies, and share the secrets and stories that we've gathered from working with the most successful coaching companies on earth. Welcome to episode 22 of the Coaching Equation podcast.

0:42 I'm your host, Ryan Lang, CEO and co-founder of Empire Partners, alongside my co-founder and co-host, Brooke Bishop. And in today's episode, we are going to dive in on what it takes to to not just build a coaching business, but sustain it for the long haul. Listen, business in general is not for the faint of heart. And if you're not only going to create a business, but actually maintain it for the long haul, you've got to make sure that you're asking yourself the right questions, that you've got the right tools in your tool belt, that you've got the mindset and the mental and emotional armor on that you're going to need to withstand the challenges that are going to come your way, because it's not a matter of whether challenges will come your way.

1:25 It's a matter of when challenges will come your way and whether or not you're ready to weather the storm. So with that, let's buckle up and dive in. This is episode 22 of the Coaching Equation podcast. Here we go. 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. Good day to you, sir. Buenos dias. Thank you, buddy. I am excited for this one. There are some episodes that we do where it just feels right kind of looking around at the landscape of the world and the things that we hear from clients and quite frankly, I mean, the things that we go through internally here at Empire Partners and on a personal level as well.

2:13 And so As you're listening to this, I want to pose a question to you to kick off this episode. And that question is, are you in it for the long haul? for just as long as it's easy. And this is something that I know it gets talked about, but quite frankly, I don't feel like enough. A lot of people are in it as long as it's easy. And when we say in it, we're talking about the game of business, running your own coaching business Are you in it for the long haul or only if it's going to be easy? So I know that you and I have had a lot of discussion about business kind of not being for the faint of heart and that when you decide that you're going to walk this path, you better be ready to employ some strength and grit and be willing to push through some difficult times because it's not easy.

3:10 if they're going to come, but when they're going to come. And a lot of this surfaced recently, you and I have been having discussions just kind of about where the world is right now. And this kind of being a time for a wartime business owner versus a peacetime business owner. What do you mean by that? What are we talking about here? Yeah, so it's starting to look and feel like another moment in time that was in recent past, right? If we go back to the 2000, let's just call it 2006 to 2010, that little pocket of time, the world was pretty crazy and it's starting to have similar vibes. Right. There's just a lot of stuff that's coming on the heels of what happened with COVID.

3:50 And we've got lots of stuff going on politically. We've got lots of stuff happening around the world in terms of, we talk about wartime business owner. There's a lot of potential wars actually happening on the planet right now. All these things start to mount and they start to stack. We've talked about one, two, three, too many, and then we short circuit. That not only happens to our clients and our prospects, but that happens to us too. And so we've got a lot of things that are, they're looking to take our attention. They're looking to grab our energy. They're looking to get our focus. You know, as Tony Robbins would say, you know, where focus goes, energy flows, but So when we look at this dynamic of us as business owners, are we putting our energy and our focus into the work we're doing?

4:37 Are we putting it into our clients? Are we putting it into the mission that we set out to do when we got into this coaching business to begin with? Or... Has that mission, not by directive, but by default, have we moved into somewhat of scarcity? Are we giving our attention to the things that aren't necessarily going to serve us in the mission that we originally set out to accomplish? So it really comes into this piece of being really, really freaking intentional right now and making sure that we're giving our focus to the things that are mission critical. Love the way that you explain that. And I think that it is an interesting time because there's a lot of uncertainty in the world right now in a lot of different ways and around a lot of different topics.

5:23 And I think that business in general, business is hard enough. Like... We don't really need anything going on externally to make business and running a business and being successful in business hard. It's hard enough on its own. We don't need a ton of help. Well, we are in an interesting time where there already are some challenges that are external that are playing a part. And theoretically, there could be even more. And one of the things that sort of brings up for me is... We think about, we talk a lot about like having a strong why for doing something like this. If you don't have that and it's not really ironclad, it just becomes even more difficult.

6:07 But in this case, literally, when I pose that opening question about, are you in it for the long haul or are you in it only as long as it's easy? Think about this. I want you, as you're listening to this right now, I want you to do a little check-in and you don't have to say anything out loud to anybody. This is your opportunity to sort of check in with yourself right now. And I want you to think about something. I want you to think about the reasons why you wanted to create your own coaching business in the first place. What were the reasons? Who were the people that you wanted to support? Who were the clients that you wanted to serve? What was the lifestyle that you wanted to lead? And I want you to say out loud as best you can, Who you did it for.

6:50 What are the other reasons that you did it? What were your strong ironclad reasons why it was a must for you to do this? And then I want you to end that statement by saying, as long as it's easy. And then I want you to try it again. And I want you to end the statement with no matter what. And I want you to ask yourself and be honest right now in this moment, like which one really feels aligned when you say it out loud? Because I think that a lot of times as human beings, it gets really easy for any of us to give lip service to the things that we want.

7:32 or the things that we're going to go off and create when it's easy. And when we're in the planning stage and when we're telling everybody what we're going to go do and all of that stuff. And then when the shit hits the fan or you get punched in the mouth, which you will, it's not an if, but it's a, when, what do you do then? How do you stand up then? And are you going to get bounced or are you going to hang in there and, and figure it out over time? I'm seeing what's happening, at least in a lot of conversations having, I mean, it's the human condition. There's a lot of us that get into the space of, I want to get to this outcome if it falls into my rules. And if it happens in the way that I think it needs to happen, or this picture we have in our head of the step-by-step that we think like, if I do A and B, it's going to give me C. This is a very simple business that is really complicated.

8:21 And what that screws with is it screws with our headspace. Right. It's like, oh, my gosh, there's so much. Let's say you have an offer for people who want to lose weight. There's so many people on the planet that need to lose weight. I'm going to crush it with my coaching offer. It's like, yeah, there's a lot of people who need to lose weight because they have really bad habits. They have really bad psychology. And guess what? A lot of them don't want to do the works. So if you think you're going to have a health weight loss offer and you're going to go out and just crush it because there's so many people who have a need for what you offer. Right. I want to give you a reality check. Be prepared to get kicked in the balls. This is not for the faint of heart. You're going to have to actually build and grow a business. There's going to be moments where it gets into flow and there's going to be moments where you're going to feel as if nothing is going your way.

9:05 That's where leadership really comes into play. That's so true. And we just did a great podcast actually on leadership here recently, sales leadership specifically, which is a great, just microcosm for leadership in general. If you haven't heard that, you should go back and listen to that episode. But one of the things I think is also really a danger here, Brooke, is that In a lot of cases where we're bright eyed and bushy tailed and we got stars in our eyes and right, everything's going to be amazing. And this is what I'm going to go do. I'm going to go change the world and everything. And in a lot of cases, we don't know what we don't know. And that's one thing. Right. You will come face to face with reality. That's that's inevitable. If you haven't already, don't worry, it's coming.

9:46 But the other thing that we're up against is we also have a lot of people and companies, quite frankly, that are out there in the world putting out a whole lot of messaging about the fact that it's easy, that it's easy. Danger, Will Robinson. Listen. I remember we could go so far on this story, but I'm going to give Cliff notes. When I first started my coaching business and after about six months of doing stuff in person, I was figuring out the whole online thing and online marketing and... All of the things. And I remember at that time doing business with a couple of companies that really just made it look and seem easy.

10:30 It's like, look, you just got to do ABC and you're golden, man. You're going to have leads coming out of your ears and yeah, you know, plenty of money in your pocket, more clients than you know what to do with and the whole thing. And here's the truth. Sometimes you can get lucky. Sometimes you find the right tactic for the right offer right out of the gate. And it can happen that way. Here's the thing, though. Even if you are lucky at the very beginning, eventually luck's going to run out on that. There is no easy way to create a successful, sustainable, profitable coaching business or business of any kind, period. There is no easy button for that.

11:11 It doesn't mean that it's a complicated road, but it is not a short one. And if you want to walk, here's the interesting thing. What I found, quite frankly, is that if you want a short path, a crap ton of money, a whole bunch of clients, the business that you see other people having who've spent 5, 10, 15 years building, growing, hustling to create what they've got, and you want to do that in a short window, it's going to be very disappointing. And one thing that I can tell you is that I remember... how delusionally optimistic I was at the very beginning of my business when I didn't think it was going to be that hard.

11:57 And again, I was working with a few different companies that kind of told me it wouldn't be that hard. And then it was that hard. And over the years, I had to ask myself like, wow, this sucks. This is really difficult. This is not only is this difficult. This has cost me a lot of money to try to figure out. It's cost me a lot of time. I've had to I've had to do a whole lot of things that I didn't want to do. Do I want to keep going or do I want to pack it in here? And I can't speak for you, but I knew the answer to that question. And I know, you know, Brooke, you love that phrase that kind of business is for gladiators.

12:39 Where did that, I don't know if I've ever asked you this, but where did that come from in the first place? I was actually in Las Vegas with Tony Robbins. We had an event. We had about, I want to say about two or 3,000 people. And this was actually the event that I was responsible for putting on called Business Mastery. And Tony did this contest and let everybody, we're basically trying to figure out who could raise more money for one of the charities. And so the whole concept was we broke everybody into different teams. And within that, they got to pick their own theme and they got to create their own little mini business while they were there for the five days. And whoever could raise the most money for the charity, there was this whole, basically a challenging task that was going on. And the team that won, they became the Gladiators.

13:22 And they were all walking around in gladiator costumes. And they all like they were that they literally labeled themselves. We are the gladiators. And so they were in there. And the whole concept that came out of this was, you know, business is for gladiators. There's going to be the mass majority of people that are going to go into that arena and they're not going to come out. And there's going to be a select few that when they approach it truly like a gladiator, when they really go in there with a I'm going to survive at all costs attitude. Those are the ones that will survive. And those are the ones that are going to thrive. And they're going to be the ones that are victorious in the long haul. That's really where that that original theme came into play. But it's so true. I mean, not to go into all the statistics that I know we've thrown around over the course of time.

14:05 But the stats aren't good when it gets down to who makes money and who thrives and who kicks ass in this kind of a biz. There are those that go into it. And this is the important piece. And I had a conversation with one of our clients yesterday, actually. When we get wrapped up into our own outcomes of why we're doing what we're doing, that's where we get tripped up because we put timelines and we put rules around that. Mm-hmm. When we go into it with the sake of I'm doing this for something that's bigger, I'm doing this for a greater cause. I don't know when the last time you watched the gladiator with Russell Crowe was, but him going into that arena, he had nothing to lose. His family was gone. And he went in there with one intention, which was basically to fuck with the emperor, right?

14:51 And to sway humanity and to do something that was far beyond himself. And he was willing to lose it all for the sake of that. That was a really long answer to a very simple question. It was, but you know what? If you're listening to this, hit rewind, go back and listen to the way that Brooke just described Maximus Decimus Meridius. That where you're at? Are you willing to give whatever it takes? Because I'm going to be honest with you. If you're not, you are going to get your ass handed to you by your competition. Who is? I can promise you that no matter what you do, no matter what niche you're in, there is somebody who is willing to go farther, work harder, do more and sacrifice more in order to get where they want to get.

15:39 And if you don't have that, this is not about competition per se, but what it is about is having an internal knowing that if I'm not willing to go far enough, if I'm not willing to work hard enough, if I'm not willing to put in the time, the effort, if I'm not willing to bring the right people onto my team, if I'm not willing to invest in myself and in my business, all of those things, if I'm not willing to do that. Who's lapping me right now? Who's running past me right now? Who's growing while I'm contracting or standing still right now?

16:19 And I do think that having an internal knowing of that is really, really important. And, you know, when we talk about motivators, I think as well, like, we don't need to go deep on this. But... we of course do live in a day and age where we live in an Instagram world, man. And everybody's got to rent a Ferrari and, and throwing cash at the camera and the whole thing. And, and, One of the things that I want to mention, we don't even need to discuss the fallacy of some of the tactics that are out there and some of the people behind those tactics. But more importantly, it's how much does money motivate you?

17:04 And I'll be the first to say, I love money. I do. I love money. I'm not afraid to say I like expensive things. I like everybody have the things that I like to spend money on. I love to go stay at Ritz Carlton. I like to drive a nice car. I enjoy those things. But that, and yes, do I want to create a business and a lifestyle that puts me in a position to be able to afford the things that I enjoy doing and having? Sure. But the amount of times that that crosses my mind in terms of it being an actual motivator, not that often, to be honest.

17:45 We have goals and things that we want to accomplish. Brooke and Vanessa and I talk about all the time. But the money to me truly is a byproduct. of the other things that really drive me. And one thing that I've seen, I don't know if you've seen this as well, Brooke, but one thing that I've seen without question is that I've certainly seen people who are motivated primarily by money become successful. I have seen that. And we can point to plenty of people in the world who have gotten far enough and that's been their primary motivator.

18:25 but staying successful. is a whole nother story if that is your primary motivation. Because eventually, you can only make so much. Like, you will lose the drive and the gusto. It's not going to mean anything. And you look backwards and you go, my God, I built a life out of something with no meaning behind it. And I think that money can be a motivator. But in order to actually do this and survive, for the long haul without losing your soul. It can't be the primary motivator. Yes, to every single thing you just said. And it can be, the way I look at it, it can be a spark, but you don't want it to be the entire fire.

19:08 Yeah. Right? So the other dangerous piece with it, to be totally honest, So you and I grew up playing basketball. Yep. So did you ever play basketball where you get to halftime and you look up at the scoreboard and your team's down by, let's say 10, 15, sometimes even 20 points. Sure. Like what, what's the feeling that's in your stomach when you look up at the scoreboard and you're down 15 or 20 points. It feels crappy. Yeah. Crappy. Like, holy cow. How are you? Like insurmountable odds. How am I going to do this? Yeah. Then the next thing that goes through your head is, oh, shit, we're going to have to work twice as hard on this back half of the game in order to recover, to get back into the swing of things.

19:48 Now, the challenging part, when we only look at the scoreboard, when we're playing the game of business. there's no clock that's ticking down. It's just the score is the score. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. And so if you allow your self-worth and if you allow the energy to always be hinged on whatever numbers are on that scoreboard, that means your life experience is a direct reflection of actually a lagging indicator, not something that's a leading indicator. So in essence, what that puts you in, puts you in a state of reaction and it puts your emotions into a space of up, down, up, down, up, down, based on something that's already happened. not on the thing that we're declaring and moving towards. That is insanely, insanely powerful.

20:30 And I think that what it speaks to as well is the necessity for us to, number one, circle back to my original question and think about the things that actually do drive you. When you started your business, when you made this big decision, this is really what you wanted for your life. What were the things that motivated you? What did drive you? And those things at the end of the day, if you're conscious and intentional enough, they are the constant, right? No matter what the number is, scoreboard can always change. And to your point, Brooke, it's going to be up, down, whether we're talking about the amount of money that you're making or other KPIs that we're tracking or following.

21:16 We can go up, down, up, down, up, down. It can happen that way. But... I love that you brought this up because I think that in order to be successful over the long term, one of the things that we have to do is we have to be willing to build the kind of mental... and emotional armor that we need to be able to sustain those ups and downs. Because while money probably as a primary driver, isn't going to serve you best as the primary driver. It is something obviously that we have to track. If we can't make money, we're in big trouble. We can't, we can't sustain a business if we can't make money.

21:57 Right. And knowing that money is going to come and go, which is another thing. If you haven't figured that out, get ready. Um, Because it will. It's going to come and go. And I think that we've got to be willing to build a mental and emotional armor. And I think part of building that mental and emotional armor that creates the mindset that will allow us to actually sustain over the long haul. I think that to a large degree, that comes from really being very, very connected to that strong reason why. Because when you are, you can withstand the difficulty over time and you cannot get too high when things are up and you cannot get too low when things are down.

22:48 And I also think that part of building that... mental and emotional armor is developing the expectation that challenges are going to come. We talked about this in a previous episode, but it's so important to just be of the mindset that challenges are going to come. And every single one of them, we were just having this conversation as a team the other day. These are our opportunities for growth, for expansion, to rise up to the next level of ourselves as a human, as a business owner, as a coach, etc. And I think to me, that's a big part of building that mental and emotional armor.

23:30 I absolutely love that. And there's something that, and again, this will be Brooke's vulnerable moment. I'm not going to cry, but there's, anytime we've hit that wall of like the, holy crap, how are we going to get through this moment? And trust me, they happen frequently and it doesn't matter if you're making mistakes. $10 in your business or $10 million or a hundred million. I mean, there was meetings that we've been with organizations that are doing 200 million plus per year. And guess what? They have those, oh, how are we going to get through this moment? Because all the reality is the bigger your company gets, the more revenue that you start to create. Well, guess what? That means that there's more responsibility. There's more people. There's more effect that can be had.

24:11 So the problems don't go away. They just change and they change shape. Sometimes they get bigger. Sometimes they get smaller. Yeah. One of the fallbacks, and you actually, we had one of these recently, but you called to that deeper part of us, right? In one of our team meetings. And the thing that I always go back to when that, oh shit moment hits, there's three questions I ask. First one is, what do I have absolute, key words here, what do I have absolute control over? Hmm. Second piece is what do I have no control? What do I have zero controls over? And the third one, and this is the important one, and this is where most people throw in the towel because this is the one that requires some energy. It's what do I have influence over?

24:52 Every time I go into those three and I go, what do I have absolute control over? Here's the next question. Am I controlling the things I have control over? Nine times out of 10, the answer is usually no. Why we're in a pickle. The things that we have no control over, when I then ask that honest question of what am I trying to control that's on this list of stuff that I have no control over, I usually find there's things I'm putting my energy into and I'm like, why the hell am I putting my energy into that? And then that third question, which is what do I have influence over? This was the fascinating piece. And recently going through this again. I found like 30 opportunities that I could have influence on that could change the game, not just in the immediate moment, but like change the game game.

25:33 And that was a magical thing where I went, holy crap, I'm giving my energy to the wrong things. I need to pivot my focus where I'm given my energy and I've got to get back into influence because that's where the magic happens. Hmm. The phrase, change your questions, change your life, right? And I think that those questions are so simple, bro, and so powerful. I freaking love that because I think that in these moments of difficulty, it gets too easy to just go. Why is this happening to me? Why can't this just be easier? I thought we'd be here by now. Why aren't we there by now? These are very, very, very powerful questions because they, first of all, they anchor you in reality.

26:17 which is really, really important. And more often than not, when we're asking the other types of questions, that's not anchored in reality. We anchor ourselves in reality, and then we put ourselves in a position. What I really, really love about this is all of these questions lead to inspired action. And, you know, when we talk about This is true just in human life in general, but in business especially. In those moments of worry and fear and doubt and uncertainty, the fastest way to get past those moments is taking inspired action. And it's not about the grind, not about working 100 hours a week.

27:03 It's about inspired action. Because truly, if you want to find a way to wind yourself up into depression and anxiety and worry and uncertainty really, really, really quickly, have that thought about, oh, my gosh, why is this happening to me? I don't know what I'm going to do. And then just sit there. See how that works out for you. Or, in some cases, worse yet, just be reactionary. This is another key. One of the things I want to reflect on with these three questions that you pose to yourself is that not only are they rooted in reality, but you just saying those questions out loud, I literally could feel my body like in a state of calm.

27:51 Yeah. Because these questions are supposing that there's a certain amount of influence that I have inside of me now. Right. And the truth is that so often when we're freaking out and things are hard, we just get like super reactionary and there's this frantic energy running around. And it's really interesting because, you guys, we've seen this multiple times inside of businesses where people get reactionary and they freak out and they just go running around. Squirrel. Exactly. Squirrel. Then it's not just one person. Then it disseminates amongst the team and everybody's that way.

28:32 And it's a fucking disaster. But I really do love these questions. I love how intentional they are. And I love that, again, it puts us in a place where we remind ourselves. We don't discover. We remind ourselves that we are actually in the driver's seat and that we do have an opportunity to impact our circumstances. I love the fact you just used the metaphor of being in the driver's seat. And this is something that's really, really important. Just because you're in the driver's seat doesn't mean you get to be on the Autobahn and that the car is never going to break or that you're not going to get rear-ended or that somebody's not going to come over that center divide.

29:15 Like, yes, you're moving. That's what we think, right? We're like, oh, I started, I'm starting a business, you know, butterflies and roses and rainbows and like, nothing's going to go wrong. And everyone's going to say yes. And I'm going to have no expenses and only money coming in. And I'm going to live out my life's mission. And I'm going to have a legacy. Now, part of the reason you mentioned this earlier, part of the reason we believe this crap is because we've had a lot of marketers selling us this crap, that that's what we can have. Yeah. And like, look at our three people out of the 14,000 that we've worked with that hit these incredible results. Never mind that that was over a 10 year period or that they already had, you know, all kinds of circumstance that we didn't know about. We get fed this bill of goods that we're going to get in our car and it's going to be like just smooth sailing and there's never going to be a pothole.

30:04 Here's what life's going to be like in your world of business. I don't know if you've been to Costa Rica, but it's like driving down the highway in Costa Rica. There's a lot of potholes. Nobody follows the signs. People honk at you for weird reasons, right? There's going to be crap that comes out from behind the bushes that you had. You didn't even know that that was an animal that existed. Businesses, we're going to write a book. Businesses like driving in Costa Rica. But when it comes to being in this game, you've got to be really committed to taking those potholes and figuring out how to navigate, figuring out how to fix flat tires. It's going to be, here's the other part. make sure you've got some really cool co-pilots that are there with you. You have some people in the back seat that when the radio stops work and they're willing to sing with you and you guys can still have fun singing down the road, even though it's not your favorite band blasting through the, the speakers that sound incredible.

30:55 I'm going too far down the road of this metaphor. You get the point. You just capped it out perfectly. I'm going too far down the road. Of this metaphor. How do we triple in Tundra? Can you double stamp and triple stamp? Where am I? What am I talking about? Yes. I don't know. Jinx, double jinx, no jinx back. And that's a good way to end the podcast. So today, you guys, have a great day. Where I did want to go with this as I totally derailed myself. There was a moment in time where actually working with Tony Robbins, selling on the front lines, the team was on the struggle bus.

31:37 And when I say the team, I mean like all 400 employees, we didn't have money to spend on ads. Yes, I'm going to say that again. The number one name in personal development did not have money to spend on ads. And we were in a commission only position. Right. We had to double down and go like, okay, do we throw in the towel and do we blame the fact we don't have leads? My bill collectors didn't care. My mortgage company didn't care. You know, my soon-to-be wife, like, was I going to go home and be like, honey, they didn't get us leads. I'm sorry. We don't get to have food this Friday night. Yeah. We had to get into a different space and we had to get into a different zone because if it was all about making the money, it was a very dark window of time.

32:20 And we were in the world of personal development, no less. So I want to highlight this because we had to dig into a deeper thread of what we were doing and why we were doing it to keep our head screwed on straight. Because here's the reality then and now. You're one day away from being in momentum. So I'm going to say this one more time. This is really, really critical. You are one good day away from getting yourself into full-blown momentum. Why is that critical? momentum is the superpower. Momentum is that magical juice. We talk about progress equaling happiness. All it takes is a little snowball of moving forward.

33:01 It's when we fixate and focus on the fact that we think we're moving backwards, that's when we get in a rut. That's when we're stuck, is when we're looking at everything that's not moving. I want to go back to this piece of Again, I guess we're still in the same metaphor, but moving down the road, it's getting that piece that just that little energy moving forward. One freaking day gets your whole world back in the zone. But that's where leadership kicks in. It's what can you do to have two days a week that get you in momentum and then three and then four and then five and so on and so forth. It's really well said. And I think that I think that when we talk about momentum, sort of circling back to the idea of of inspired action, I mean, pretty old saying Plato said that, you know, necessity is the mother of invention.

33:52 not incorrect, not incorrect at all. And you know, one of the things I'm sure you've experienced this too, bro. And, and really, I mean, you were just talking about it with this situation with Tony and the leads and stuff like that. I remember back when I was probably about two years into running my coaching business and things were just not working when I had clients, I was getting them really good results and they loved me and I loved doing it. Uh, and I, I was having a hard time figuring out the lead flow game at that point. And really at that point, I hadn't yet committed myself to mastery in this type of sale.

34:34 I was still convinced in my mind that because I had sold something since I was 15 years old and sold literally deals worth like hundreds of millions of dollars, that there should be no reason that I shouldn't be able to knock these out. And I hadn't yet committed to really, you know, to sales mastery. And I got to a point where I had literally had no choice but to put my business on hold because financially I couldn't sustain. I had lost like at that point, probably well over $100,000. And I took some consulting gigs. But at the same time, I had an opportunity to, to really create a level of sales mastery for myself in the high ticket coaching world, separate from all of my older opportunities.

35:24 And I took it. And in that moment, here's what I knew. I knew that if I was going to even keep the door to my coaching business cracked open, not wide open, but cracked open and let a few people in here and there. If I was only going to get a trickle worth of leads, I damn well better be able to close them when they got on my phone. And interestingly enough, I kind of set everything on hold. I committed myself to sales mastery. You know the story. We'll dive deeper into it another day, maybe. But fast forward. When a year later, when I got back to running my coaching business, I literally went one year without missing on a single enrollment call.

36:12 And it wasn't about volume at that point, but literally I had cultivated that necessity forced me into a situation where I was so confident. You just give me the human. And if they are right for what I'm doing and I'm right for them, this is getting done. It is a foregone conclusion, right? Put me in, coach. That's exactly right. Put me in, coach. But I really do think these truly are opportunities for us to grow and for us to expand. And I think one of the things that I'll throw out right now, when we think about sort of reframing obstacle versus opportunity, If you haven't seen it, I'm just going to tease this because really, as opposed to me, like doing a ham handed job of recreating this for you, just go on YouTube and watch the video.

37:04 I love Simon Sinek dearly, insanely intelligent human being, one of my favorite people in the world right now. But Simon Sinek has this thing that maybe you've seen, maybe you haven't. If you haven't seen it, when you finish watching this or listening to this podcast, go on YouTube and look up Simon Sinek bagel. And he tells this really wonderful story about being in line to get bagels with somebody that he just finished. I think they just got done running a marathon or something or 5k or something like that. And it's really, really a great story about what do you see here? Do you see the thing that you want or do you see what's in the way of the thing that you want? And I think it's really a powerful reframe.

37:45 Go catch that. We'll try it out. Maybe we can link that up in the show notes or something like that. Probably do Simon a solid. I want to hear it and see it myself. I actually haven't seen that one. Oh, yeah. Check it out. I've got to do that for sure. You'll have to link it so I can find it. That's exactly right. Yeah. You're a tech wizard like that. Just give this guy the link. He will find it. He's very confident. And I'll share it everywhere. Oh, man. Well, you know, as we start to wind this thing down, one of the things that I also want to kind of bring into play here is that through this episode, maybe you have asked yourself some tough questions. And maybe you're honestly questioning whether you do have what it takes.

38:27 Maybe we've scared you out of the game. Yeah, there are easier things you can do with your life. Believe me. Very true. But one of the things that I want to ask you right now, if you're on the fence, is do you believe at the core of your being that people need the service or the solution that you're capable of providing? One, two, five, 50, 100,000 people that need it directly from you.

39:12 Because when we talk about necessity and raising necessity to get through the tough times and all of that stuff, it gets so easy. You talked about this earlier about finding the bigger mission, finding somebody, something that we can kind of fight for when it gets tough. And yeah, like your family, you, your lifestyle, the things that you promised people, all of that stuff. What about the people that truly do need you? What about the people who are not ever going to find the right solution until they hear your voice, until they get your magic, until they come face to face with you specifically?

40:00 What about those people? And if you decide that you are an in it as long as it's easy kind of person, those people are not going to get served. Let that sit with you for a minute. Man, this was, I feel like, heavy-ish but important today. And I think we have to be willing. We can have fun and, you know, make light of things. But in truth, this is a serious conversation. I think it's one that's really timely. I want to say how much I appreciate you being willing to dig in on it with me. I know we've both been through journeys that tell us that this is truth.

40:41 This is not conjecture. It's not an idea that we cooked up. It's truth. And go follow anybody who's worth following in the business world. I don't care what business they're in, who's actually had a reasonable amount of success, and they'll tell you the same. And so I want to encourage you to think really long and hard about this today and drop us an email. Drop us an email. Connect with us on social. Let us know. Are you in it for the long haul? If so, why? Why can't you quit? What are the big reasons that you've got to stay in the game that'll drive you no matter what you're coming up against, no matter what's in front of you, et cetera, et cetera?

41:23 Brooke, anything to leave these guys with before we part ways today? I was going to share your cell numbers so people could leave you late night texts in addition to the email, but I'll refrain. I love late night texts. No, the only thing I was going to drop in here is just there's the sentiment of burn the boats. And I just want to highlight a key piece with that because I think there's a lot of people that take it out of context. Yeah. Burn the boats doesn't mean throw in the towel on everything you're doing and go one path. It means dedicate so much of yourself to the mission and the purpose and the destination that you're going towards that you're willing to do whatever it takes. Not I'm going to burn the boats on everything I've been doing and I'm only going to go this one path. And with that, I love today's conversation because.

42:07 It is the hard conversation that most people won't have. It is somewhat of, it's honestly, it's the shadow of this industry that most people won't take a look at, but we have to. We have to be willing to go into the dark side of this thing and be really honest about where things might be at. Because if we can be truthful about it, we can ask those better questions, we can get better answers, we can show up as the leaders we're capable of being, and we can actually get to that space where we can help the people who need us, especially in the times when they need us. So, yeah, I love today's session. I actually personally, I want to go back and listen to our own words just because, you know, there's magic in this conversation, man. Yep. I totally agree. And I'm with you on that. I think that this is one of those things that we all need to hear.

42:50 And by the way, if you're wondering if these kinds of questions go away, they don't. If you're wondering if you've got to consistently keep yourself in the right headspace and anchored into your stronger reasons why, you will. Every day. It is necessary. Every day. Every day. Some days more than others. Well, man, thank you for buckling up and getting in on this in everything that you delivered today. This was really impactful. We hope that you found this impactful as well. Until next time, make sure that you take some time. Don't let this one just slip. Don't let it just sit around in the background. Finish this episode and go do some journaling. Go out for a walk.

43:31 If you're a weirdo like me and you like to like talk into your phone or something like that while you walk, I just out of myself on that. Go do something like that. Journal, talk to somebody, get some of this out because if you were like 100% game on, this is who I am, I'm in 100% cool. If there were any questions, get them out. Even if you're like 100% game on, still get it out. Remind yourself why, because you're gonna need that. You're gonna need to add to that layer of armor that you've already got. We need that every day. There are too many things and external circumstances and people in the world that are trying to tear us down. And we need that armor to be strong. We got to add to those layers. So until next time, Brooke, this was awesome.

44:12 Thank you, buddy. And we will see you on the next episode of the Coaching Equation podcast. Take care. 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.