How To Save Time, Money & Heartache as an Entrepreneur

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SUMMARY

• My biggest mistake building companies #4 is: Trying to fly the plane of 'Entrepreneurship' SOLO.
• The are only 2 ways to learn stuff in life: Your experience or someone else's. 
• When you learn from your own experience, it usually hurts more, costs more and takes longer!
• Building businesses is one of those sports where, the longer you play, the greater your chance of dying!
• 20% of businesses don't make it past Year 1, and 70% of business don't make it to Year 11. 
• There are many symptoms of failing companies. Just to name a few:
  •  Not enough diversification
  • Not enough financing
  • Expanding too slowly or too quickly
• But there are 6 ROOT CAUSES for businesses failing. 
• How do you avoid these? I strongly advocate that you seek out experience. 
• The greatest learning laboratory on earth is at the feet of someone who's already done what you're trying to do!
• You can start off with passion and a plan, but a guarantee of entrepreneurship is... you WILL get punched.
• "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson
• I give you 6 signs to look out for to recognize when it's time to bring in support.
• A really great coach is going to have experience, give you confidence, reduce your pain, help you achieve your goals faster, is a great return on investment, and above all, they'll help you enjoy the journey!
• Mentions:
  • 1 Hour, 1 Page Business Plan - Free Training
• If you have any questions, about this, about your business, about working with me, or about entrepreneurship in general, shoot me an email: [email protected]   

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

"The whole concept of entrepreneurship means going by yourself. So there is this challenge that we face which is: Do I go out there and do it all on my own? Or do I get help? Do I get guidance? Do I get advice?

Hello and welcome back to my 10 biggest mistakes building companies number four!

This one has probably cost me the most amount of money. I am sure that I’ve lost millions over the years because of this one thing."

My Biggest Mistake Building Companies #4

"That is, trying to fly this plane of 'Entrepreneurship' solo.

This is trying to go to that next level in your business without bringing in an external sounding board, without bringing in other people that play the game better or differently than you do, without bringing in people that have experience and knowledge in areas that you don't.

You know the challenge of the entrepreneur, our objective, is to go out into the world and build a company, make a difference, provide ourselves some freedom, follow a passion, whatever it may be.

The whole concept of entrepreneurship means kind of going by yourself, right? You're going out there and there is this challenge that we face which is: do I go out there and do it all on my own? Or do I get help? Do I get guidance? Do I get advice?

Some of the biggest mistakes that I’ve made is not asking for advice. Not even sure why I didn't ask for advice during some of my trials and tribulations."

There are Only 2 Ways to Learn Stuff in Life

"Throughout the journey as we go through life, as we go through building our business, there's only two ways to learn things in life. Right? Two ways."

Option 1

"The first way is you get to learn on your own. You get to go out and experience stuff. Now there are certain things in life that you cannot appreciate unless you experience them on your own. No one can tell you about the beauty of the Grand Canyon without you experiencing it. No one can tell you about the beauty of the oceans in Hawaii and watching the waves crash on the rocks without you experiencing it.

In business, it's kind of the same right? You need to go out there and try things. That is sort of the DNA of the entrepreneur. They go out and try stuff. Often times, it's trial and error that get us into trouble, right?

When we go and learn stuff on our own, when it comes to the business wo—actually it doesn't even have to be the business world—it can be any kind of world. You may say, hey I’m going to go out and build myself a house, and you don't really know all of the intricacies about building a house. After three or four years, your house may crumble into the earth. And if that's the case, like damn that was an expensive mistake.

But trial and error, doing this on your own, oftentimes it hurts more, costs more and takes longer. It can be painful when you learn some of the entrepreneurial lessons on your own. It can take longer. It can cost more.

Learning lessons on your own is super valuable because some of the most powerful lessons I’ve ever learned in my life was when I went out there, tried something, absolutely screwed it up, cost me a sh*t ton of money, and then I’m like… Well guess what? That's a good lesson. So option one is learning on your own."

Option 2

"Option two is learning from others, and I preach this all the time. The greatest learning laboratory in the world is at the feet of someone who's already done what you're trying to do. This does not mean only entrepreneurship. This can be anything.

Now, one of my passions is mountain biking. I just got myself a new fat bike and I’m going out and you know going to all these trails that are just phenomenal. And I’ve learned a couple of lessons. I’ve learned some painful lessons. Like, physically painful. Where I have taken a journey on a trail, didn't really know the trail ended up going into an area that was above my head, from a skill perspective. And I fly over the handlebars, and one of my one of my fun experiences was actually shattering my collarbone while I was three miles into the woods.

Had I learned a little bit more about going down the black trails or the diamond trails, I might have approached it a little bit differently. But I didn't. I was stubborn. I was a know-it-all. I went off on my own and oops! That was that was one of those life experiences. Now I learned on my own, whereas if I had learned from someone else about these particular trails, I may not have broken my collarbone.

In any event, I’m not talking exclusively about business. There are so many things that we can learn in life at the feet of someone who's already done what you're trying to do.

These two ways of learning things often conflict with each other, right? It's like you've got the I want to go learn on my own, but yet I want to ask for help.

And so what I’m going to do is I’m going to share with you some of the things that I’ve learned over the years, some of the challenges that I’ve gone through in building businesses, and when I didn't ask for help, how it cost me emotionally, financially. And the power and the benefit of getting other people to help you along the journey. That's one of the most powerful things."

Entrepreneurial Failure Rates

"So I want to talk about big picture. Now let's talk about the world of entrepreneurship. Let's talk about entrepreneurial failure rates. When we as entrepreneurs go out into the world, it's like we go out with energy and fire and we're going to go attack it. AND there are statistics out there.

A lot of these numbers that I’m going to share with you are from Small Business Administration, Forbes Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, Investopedia. You know all of these different areas that have collected data over the years.

It is a challenge to grow and build a business. It's one of those sports that the longer you play, the greater your chance of dying. So what do I mean by that?

Let's just use the analogy, we've got 10 people that start a business on day one. We're starting with fire and energy! The statistics bear out. The reality is saying that after one year, 2 out of every 10 businesses will disappear. So that's 20 percent. Of those eight remaining businesses—they're learning stuff, they're getting better, they're trying to get to that next level, but the statistics bear out. After two years, 30 percent of the businesses will have disappeared.

After five years, 50 percent have. If you're running a company and you've gotten past the five-year mark, congratulations! That's amazing because most don't get here. Most don't get to five years.

Then even more sobering is that after 10 years, the statistics bear out, 70 percent of businesses don't make it to year 11."

The Symptoms of a Failing Business

"Now there is a whole ton of reasons why this happens, and I can go through all of the details and all of the reasons why businesses fail, I’m just going to share a few of the reasons why businesses fail. Now I’m going to call these, these are the symptoms.

I’m going to get into the root cause in a second, but again I’ve collected this information from a whole variety of sources, none of it is comprehensive, but it's sort of a foundation. It's a little bit foundational.

But you could not understand your market. You may have built the business—one of my biggest failures is built a business without enough diversification. Insufficient financing. You may have expanded too fast, or in the case of certain industries, you may expand too slow. You don't have the growth. You don't have the capital to get to that next level and the competition swallows you up. You know, depending on your business, you may mismanage inventory.

You may try and do it all, you may have a poor management team. You know, your management team may not be solid enough to get to the next level. But these are just some of the reasons. Wrong target market, inability to raise capital, no vision, no business plan, no marketing plan. An inability to understand cash flow. There's a ton of symptoms that end up becoming one of the reasons or one of the many reasons why businesses don't make it.

So the goal is, how do we get past this? How do we make sure that we don't make these mistakes? You know all the details about cash flow and business planning and marketing plan and all that other stuff, you know great. Those are those are statistics. Those are analytics. Those are real life things, but what's the root cause? What caused this whole thing to happen?"

6 Root Causes of Business Failure

"There's six reasons why businesses fail.

#1 - Ignorance

"Number one is ignorance. Ignorance in the sense of not understanding what you're doing at the time when your business needs to get to that next level. You know, ignorance can be, I just don't have the right management team. Ignorance can be, I’m not looking at the big picture of where society is going. Basically, not having the knowledge, not having the input, not having the right kind of people surrounding you to get you to that next level. Ignorance is a big one."

#2 - Stubbornness

"Second one, flat out stubbornness. Like I mentioned earlier, the entrepreneurial DNA, our DNA, is one of, I’m gonna go out there and do it on my own! I think I can be better, faster, quicker. You know, I’m gonna go out there and follow my passion. Or whatever it may be. There is a level of know-it-all, a level of—and  I’ve been guilty of this—that I’m gonna just go fight through it. Oftentimes our own stubbornness, our own inability to ask for help during challenging times, our unwillingness to be open-minded, can cost us dearly."

#3 - Shit Happens

"Another one, let's talk reality. Shit happens sometimes. There are sometimes that businesses can have the greatest strategy, the greatest business plan, and then a macro event happens, and the business is gone. Now, there really is only one way to go out of business and that is if you run out of cash. Cash rules all.

Now when I say something like shit happens, there is this thing that happened, you know I’m recording this in 2022, that happened over the last two years called Covid. Covid, in and of itself.

Imagine the entrepreneur that's out there, and all of a sudden the government says, Hey guess what, Mike? You can no longer have customers. There's this thing going on in the world so your customers can no longer buy from you. I have many friends that lost their companies during Covid.

Some of the know-it-alls out there will say, well they didn't pivot fast enough. They didn't switch gears. They should—NO. Bullshit. One of my friends had a 25 million dollar business building trade show exhibits. 185 employees. For two years, there were no trade shows. So what was he going to do? How do you pivot fast enough? Laid off his entire staff, kept them on for as long as he could, but it didn't work. There were many companies that could not bear the challenge of not having customers for three months, six months, 12 months 24 months… and they disappeared.

Shit happens. There are things that go on in society, there are technological changes, there are all these other things that go on, but sometimes… shit happens."

#4 - Mindset Sucks

"The other thing is when shit happens, sometimes, there are many companies when the shit hit the fan, all of a sudden, Covid is here and you're buried with all these challenges.

I know a guy who owned a series of health clubs. He just sat there and said, well, geez, I hope this ends soon. No! No! And then I had another friend in the exact same industry, who immediately pivoted and said, you know what, I’ll figure it out. He created a virtual health club, created all of his courses and training and personal training and his mindset training, nutrition training. Converted it all to digital. Everything was online, and now his business still uses that when the world has come back. But two individuals, both doing the exact same thing, running health clubs, one says, what do I do next? How do I pivot? The other one says, well just kind of hope that it gets better. And unfortunately, the the guy that said I hope it gets better, they're no longer in business. So that's a mindset approach."

#5 - No Innovation

"Number five is innovation. Innovation is the fundamental of all business. I don't care how good you are. You could be a restaurant that makes certain meals, if you don't innovate with your menu, eventually people are going to get bored. You know, there's so many different things that we can do in business to innovate, to take our business to the next level. Innovation is key. Many, many businesses disappeared because of lack of innovation.

You know there are things that have gone on in the world, you know another industry that disappeared, you know a very large company was called Blockbuster Video. What did they do? They rented videos, right? They rented videos.

They missed the curve. And again, even if they caught the curve, they may have not been able to pivot fast enough, when you have thousands of locations that are renting videos and DVDs and things like that, when the world went digital. Oftentimes businesses disappear because they simply don't innovate."

#6 - FEAR

"And finally, I’m going to say the root cause of a lot of business failures is simply fear! Fear!

Why fear, Mike? Some people, when they're faced with getting to that next level, or they're faced with the challenge of whatever business may throw at you, they are scared to go out and try different things.

They want to do today, what they did yesterday, even though what they did yesterday and today is not going to work for tomorrow. They just are fearful of taking that next step. They're fearful of investing in advice. Advice and knowledge and education come from a variety of different sources, but they're frozen.

It just doesn't work. You can't freeze.

So I think these are the 6 fundamental, core root causes of business failure."

How To Avoid Business Failure

"So now the question is, how do I avoid this? How do I get to that next level? How do I take my business to the next level? My advice is, I strongly advocate that you seek out experience. Use that greatest learning laboratory on earth: the feet of someone who's already done what you're trying to do. Like I said there's two ways to learn things your experience or someone else's, and when it's yours it hurts more, it costs more, it takes longer.

You know, my dad told me this many years ago when I was a kid. He said, Mike you are the average of the five people you hang around with. And that is physically. That is emotionally. That is mentally. That is spiritually. That is from a business perspective. It's all about the people you're hanging around with.

So take a superhero like Elastigirl. You know elastigirl, she's a superhero. I just happen to enjoy those movies, but if you want to be a superhero and you want to be phenomenal, you can't hang around with people that are playing the game below you.

You gotta hang around with people that are playing the game above you. Playing it better or differently than you are. There is this magic that happens when you hang around with people.

For example, my whole career has been in the world of, for all intents and purposes, health and fitness and exercise and stuff like that. Just walking into the gym, just walking into a health club, there is a level of energy that happens. Because you're automatically surrounded by people that are doing stuff.

They're moving. They're action takers. They're going out and they're saying, I’m gonna take control of my health. A spin class, a yoga class, it's just—if you've never done a spin class and you want a jolt of energy, go do a spin class. You're in a square room with 25-30 other people that are cranking to the music. The instructor, the coach is up there and motivating, inspiring, getting you going. It's magic.

So the key is, how do you spend the time with the people that are playing the game at a different level?"

Why Did You Start Your Business?

"Before we go into all of the answers to all this, my question to you is: why did you start your business?

You obviously did something: you took a risk. You said, I am going out there, for whatever the reason is, and you took a risk. The number one reason that most people, I should say one and two, passion and freedom are the two things, the two primary reasons why people go out into this journey. So, did you start your business because of a passion, an obsession, something that you love?

That is so foundational because I’ll tell you what sucks. What sucks is going through life doing sh*t that you don't enjoy. That sucks! It's not fun. So if you have the ability to follow a passion and do something that you absolutely love… man, how great is that? So your passion. You may have thought of a better mousetrap. Hey I think I can do what they're doing, better than the way they're doing it. Like, hey I’m going to go out there and give it a shot.

You may have had a goal when you started your business of, I want freedom. I want financial freedom. I want time freedom. You know, when you get going that is that is beautiful, but you know in the beginning, financial freedom and time freedom are not there. It's like you gotta buckle up in the early stages.

You may have started your business out of sheer desperation. You may have gotten laid off at your job. You may be in a situation where you're entering your retirement years, and you don't have enough money to get you through. Like, hey I’m gonna go start a business.

You may have gotten into the world of entrepreneurship just simply because of your family-owned business. It doesn't matter what the business is, you know lots of times businesses go from generation to generation, and it may not be your passion. You may have gone in it, but it may not be what's keeping you going.

And then, money could have been a driver. Like you could have cash and buy a business, you could buy a franchise, you could say, hey you know what? I just wanna buy a business and crank it up for a few years and flip it. Lots of reasons to go along this entrepreneurial journey.

So why did you start your business? And when you started your business, did you have the energy and the fire in your belly? This is great! I love it. I am so excited! I’m going on this journey!. And I mentioned earlier, the failure rates in business, it is amazing.

As you go further and further along in the journey, how it becomes more and more challenging. But when you start off, it's like, this is great! I’m following my passion. I’m going after it. I’m gonna seek freedom. And then you go and you create a strategy, and maybe you created a business plan, maybe you did not create a business plan, but you had a vision. You had a goal. You had a dream. You had a path. You had something that's like, I’m going out to get this.

I think business plans are absolutely essential, you know. I have a whole course called 1 hour, 1 page business plan—it doesn't go through the nuts and bolts—I’ve written the 30, 40 page business plans—but a business plan is something that can get you going."

Here Comes the PUNCH

"But you start off with the passion, you create the business plan, all of a sudden you start to hire people and you start to build a team. And the things are really cranking and then… then the punch comes…right? You may be cranking along, you may be rolling, the cash is flowing, and then punch!

Mike Tyson, the great saying, “Everybody has a plan till they get punched in the face.” As you're going through, building your business, oftentimes you can get punched. And this is when, most importantly, you don't want to be flying solo.

If you are frustrated, if you are overwhelmed, if you're in any of these places, going through it solo is difficult. I think in general, going through the journey of life without having someone there externally to help you and guide you and talk through challenges with… oftentimes it's a spouse, it's a friend, it's a child… many people use a bar stool to have that sounding board. Don't recommend it.

But nonetheless, I think that one—when you get punched, does that take you from that stage of I love this and this is great, to… is this great?

You know, is your business sort of collapsing in on you? Are there challenges? Are there things that you're trying to get through and you don't have that sounding board? This is why I do what I do. There is just a challenge when you're going through this alone."

Ask Yourself

"So got a few questions about your journey. Where are you right now? And if you are experiencing any of this stuff, I strongly advocate, strongly advocate—find someone to talk with. It does not have to be me. But my point is, it is difficult to fly the plane of life, fly the plane of entrepreneurship solo. If you're in your business right now and you're growing your business, you're cranking, I always say you may be diving, surviving, or thriving. No matter where you are in that ladder, there's challenges.

If your diving business is sinking, how do I get more input? How do I turn this thing around? If you're just surviving and maybe you're not having fun anymore, what is the next step? What else can I do? What other ideas or thoughts or inputs can I get into my brain that can help me go from surviving to thriving?

And thriving! Even when you're in a thriving business, it's not over. There’s next level stuff. So I’ve been in all of these different areas at some of the times in my life, and I’m going to share with you some of the coaches that I’ve had throughout my career. They've helped me immensely.

But if you are overwhelmed, if you are frustrated, if you are in that state of being cash-strapped, meaning you're trading hours for dollars, you're not getting the energy and the fire and the juice anymore, your business is not bringing you the cash that you want and desperately deserve.

If you're at a place where you’re time starved, you know? Okay well I’m kicking butt now, but man, I don't have time to see my family. I don't have time to see my friends. I don't have time to work out. I don't have time to take care of my body. I don't have time to do fun stuff in life. Are you fighting fires all day in your business?

Are you, you know the old analogy and it's kind of nauseating, but I keep saying it anyway, it’s like are you working on your business versus working in your business? In your business that means you are out there and you are doing stuff every single day, but you're not taking the opportunity to step back and craft a vision of the future. Where do you want to be in 12, 24, 36 months from a professional perspective? From a personal perspective? From a health perspective? All of these things.

But if you're busy fighting fires all day and you're going from eyes open to eyes closed and you're just maxed… not good.

And just the overall question of, are you out of balance? Are you now finding yourself, the entrepreneur you and the human being you, are out of whack?

I’ve personally been here myself. I’ve worked with hundreds of clients now, that have been in this out of balance state. It's not a fun place to be, but I can promise you—I guarantee you—if you put different stuff into your brain… I call it the good, the clean, the pure, the powerful, and the positive. If you can put in good stuff—clean, pure, powerful, positive, you start putting in different things that make you think differently, that help you ask different questions, you can bust through."

Ask for Help!

"But it's very difficult, I’ll say it again, it is very difficult to fly the plane of entrepreneurship solo. Now this is one of my quotes, one of my sayings, one of my taglines, if your bathroom mirror is your board of advisors, it might be fun to invite Mike to the next meeting.

Now, I’m not advocating invite Mike, what I’m advocating is get help. Ask for help. Talk to people. It is so much more fun when you're flying in the plane with other people that share your vision, they share your passion, they can help you avoid the landmines. Some of the greatest coaches and mentors and advisors I’ve ever had in my life help me avoid massive landmines.

This thing that we do, this thing called building a business, this thing called being an entrepreneur, is an emotional and financial roller coaster. It has ups & downs and it has highs & lows. It has wins and losses. It is the entire gambit of emotional challenge and oftentimes financial challenges. There are days that I remember I was rolling in the dough and then there were days that I had nothing. Because maybe I made the wrong decision, maybe I didn't have the right mentors or advisors in my life. Maybe I didn't have the right management team, maybe my mindset sucked. And there are times absolutely. I’m not gonna say well I haven't… yeah my mindset sucked many times."

The Term: Coach

"So I’m gonna just share with you one of the pieces of advice that I would recommend. Now there is this term out there called coach. You know, business coach, life coach, you know… everybody's a coach. It doesn't take a lot of skill to be a coach. You can take a class and you can be a coach.

Now I think and I always relate coaching to the sports world, because this is where the term started, right? But if you think about the coach, what is the job of the coach? Now I am from Boston and one of the greatest coaches of the entire National Football League is Bill Belichick.

The guy is a genius. But what did he do? He also had great coaches surrounding him, right? He had great leaders surrounding him. There are so many coaches on a football team. There's a kicking coach, there’s a quarterback coach, there’s a linebacker coach, there is a wide receiver coach, there is a running back coach, there is a health and nutrition coach, there is a personal trainer, there is a therapist. All sorts of coaches.

Why are there all of these coaches surrounding the New England Patriots? Because the coach's goal is to make the team better. A good coach or a good mentor or a good guide can make you and your team better.

Now, when I talk about me, I am not a business coach. I think the term business coach has been so watered down and washed out that it has zero meaning. So I’ve focused my energies to, I am an entrepreneur coach.

I exclusively work with entrepreneurs. If you are in middle management in a corporation and you're looking to figure out how to build a stronger team… I got many friends that do this. If you're looking to build your culture in a you know 2,000 employee business… not for me. Many friends that I can introduce you to that will do this.

If you are an entrepreneur and your goal is to build a business and you're running your business anywhere from a quarter of a million to five million dollars in sales and you're looking to take your business to the next level…that's Mike. That's what I do. Now, I’m not saying choose Mike. What I’m saying is, use the ability to get different people into your life.

Oftentimes coaches can be great. I’ve got hundreds of reviews that said Mike is a good entrepreneur coach. I don't want to be a business coach. I’m an entrepreneur coach. Why? Because I want to help you and your business get to the next level. That's why I do trainings like this. That's why I do podcasts and videos and speeches, because I am just obsessed with the entrepreneur. I’m obsessed.

I built six different businesses on my own. I just love the fearlessness of going out there and hey I can do it. I can try it. I’m gonna go out and I’m willing to roll the dice and fail. But a good coach… a good coach is gonna make the team better."

My Coaches

"Now I would just share with you, I have coaches now. I’ve had coaches throughout my entire career. A few years ago, I entered into the new world of coaching and speaking and things like that. I’ve never been in this world before, you know? I built manufacturing businesses, I had factories in Asia, I had warehouses all over the U.S. I had a bunch of employees. Now I learned a certain kind of business.

Well, I was entering into the new world of being a coach. I want to be an entrepreneur coach. I want to be a speaker. So I got myself a coach coach. A coach that helps people learn how to run coaching businesses. Over the years, I’ve had Tony Robbins coaches.

You know Tony Robbins, they have business coaches, they have life coaches, they have coach—in general, you know there are some times in my life, man very difficult times. You know losing loved ones and losing businesses and losing my health and sickness and illness and all these other things. A Tony Robbins coach at one point saved my life. I was in a dark spot. So I’ve had a tony Robbins coach. I’ve had marketing—not had, I have marketing coaches right now.

The world of marketing, the world of digital marketing in particular, all the social media and email and marketing and YouTube and all… like it's crazy. I have a coach that's helping me understand the world of marketing.

Over the years, when I was running different companies in different industries, I joined an organization called Vistage. Vistage was basically… you put a whole bunch of CEOs in a room and they kind of commiserate with each other. We had speakers, we had motivators, we had a personal coach as part of our journey, but it was always being out there with others helping me get better.

I can't advocate enough for masterminds. I’m currently in some group coaching masterminds. One of the groups I’m part of, I hang around with every Monday night, with people running multi-million dollar coaching businesses. I get to listen to them. It's super powerful. It's amazing when you get to hang out, like I said earlier you're the average of the five people you hang around with. You're number six. So you better look around your sphere of influence, count up the five people you're spending the most time with—and again spending most time with does not have to be physically. It can be virtually as well. You can be in the virtual world of people that are trying to get to that next level.

Because I do believe that mindset is the game changer. I really don't care how good your business model is. You're going to get punched, and you're gonna get punched hard, and then you're gonna get punched again. And then you need to get your butt back up. So coaches have helped me immensely."

What a GREAT Coach Can Do

"And a great coach, a really great coach, anyone that can come into your world is gonna be able to do a few things. So as you go and you say you know what, Mike, you're right. I am not gonna fly or I’m not gonna continue to fly the plane of entrepreneurship solo. I am gonna branch out. I’m gonna get some help.

I’m just telling you that some of the things that a great coach or mentor or guide or you know advisor can bring you is, they can bring you experience. You know, I think about golf. Golf is one of my passions. A golf coach can make all the difference in the world because they can not only help you with the swing plane and the angle and the launch and the draw and the fade and you know getting extra distance with the right you know rotational force, they can help you with the mindset aspect.

Because I can promise you, if you're a golfer you're going to know exactly what I mean. If you're at the driving range and you pull out the big stick and you crank it right down the middle 300 yards, 280, whatever it is.. That feels good! But then when you go and stand on the tee of the par 5, and you pull out the big stick, and there's out of bounds on the right, and there's a pond on the left, and there's a creek down the middle, and you're getting beaten by your opponent… the emotional stuff, the psychological stuff, your approach to that t-shot. It's a lot easier to hit a fairway at a driving range than it is to hit a really tight, narrow fairway on a golf course.

But a great golf coach, similar to a great personal trainer, they have experience in an area that you don't. They've worked for years in an area that you have not. I have coaches because I want to do what I think a coach does. When you learn on your own, I always say this, it hurts more, it costs more, it takes longer.

So if you want to avoid pain, if you want to get to where you're going, you want to accomplish your goals faster, I think a coach is great.

A coach can give you confidence when you get knocked down. They can say get back up! I know one of the greatest moments that I had in working with a coach was right after my mom died, and I had a bunch of other things going on and my business was a mess and my wife was sick and the IRS was auditing me, I had a whole bunch of crap. And my coach was on the other end of that phone and he said—I remember the moment like it was yesterday, and it was years ago, I remember the moment—but I’m sitting there on the phone, I am in tears. I am down in the dumps. I did not want to be part of this journey called life. And he screamed at me. He said, “Get your ass up and stand up.” I stood up and he goes, “Repeat after me,” and I and he started chanting these incantations like, I WILL NOT BE DEFEATED. I DID IT BEFORE, I’LL DO IT AGAIN! THE WORLD NEEDS ME. All of these things.

He gave me the confidence to get back up and to go keep fighting. A great coach will reduce pain. And I’m not saying just physical pain. Could be physical pain, but he or she can reduce emotional pain. A great coach will help you achieve your goals faster.

A great coach, a great investment in a coach, a mentor, or a guide, whatever it may be to help you get to that next level, to help you not fly the plane of life solo. It can be a phenomenal return on investment.

And guess what? Good advice is like good doctors, it's like good attorneys, it’s like good accountants. They tend to cost money. You know, I’ve invested over the years, hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaches, guides, mentors, courses, whatever it may be. Because I believed that I could get a return on that investment. Whatever the investment was, a great coach can help you get a great return on investment.

And to me, most importantly, no matter how you slice it, we only get one chance to go through this journey called life. We don't get to screwed up, we don't get to be a miserable prick, die and then come back in another life, and say hey you know what? I think I’m gonna do it differently this time. I think I’m gonna wake up on fire. I’m gonna be happy. I’m to be grateful for my kids, my family, my life, my health, my relationship. I’m going to be grateful—No. No. You get to enjoy the journey. A great coach will help you be happier. We'll help you be more content. We'll help you be more grateful. A great coach will do all of these things, and ultimately enjoy the journey."

Don't Be Afraid to Ask for Help

"So, my recommendation, I’m gonna close with this: please do not be afraid to ask for help. I don't care if it's me or someone else. Go out there, join groups, join clubs, join group coaching programs, get involved with people that are playing the game better or differently than you are. It is very difficult to fly the plane of life solo.

There's an entire massive multi-billion-dollar industry, industries, in therapy and coaching. It's massive. Unfortunately, there are a lot of shenanigans. There are a lot of people that are spouting off stuff and they may not be good. So, I’m not saying it's easy to find the right guide, the right mentor, the right coach. But I challenge you to go out there and take the initiative to try and figure out how you can get different inputs.

If you're deficient in any of these other areas, if you're deficient in your energy and your emotion, your optimism, and your goals… find someone that can help you along this journey."

I Want to Hear from You!

"I am beyond grateful that you chose to join me. If you are listening to this on a podcast, I thank you. I ask you to share this. Any feedback, any suggestions, shoot me an email [email protected].

If you happen to be watching this on YouTube, I would be delighted if you subscribed to my channel and liked or shared or again gave me some comments.

What did you think? Did this training resonate with you?"

My First Business

"You know, we all only get one chance to go through this journey. Entrepreneurship to me, being an entrepreneur, going for it, is just something I’ve been passionate about since I was age 11. So when I started my very first business at age 11, I would go to the golf course where I lived, or near where I lived, and I’d find the balls in the woods and I’d wash them and I’d sell them to the golfers. I’ve had this passion of wanting to follow my dreams, follow my vision, and I encourage you to continue to do the same thing."

Final Word

"I’m grateful, I’m delighted that you chose to hang out with me for a little bit today and I’ll end with this: please, please, please, if you are having challenges, find a coach, a mentor, or guide, an advisor, someone that can give you different inputs. You want to be able to hang out with people that play the game better or differently than you do. Have an amazing day!"