Why You’ll Get Stuck in 2026 (And How to Avoid It)

What if the one decision you’re avoiding is the key to your next season of freedom?

This week we sit down with our business coach and pull back the curtain—on coaching that actually changes Monday, not just your mood on Friday. We get real about pricing, permission, and why accountability beats inspiration 10 out of 10 times. We unpack the “one thing” approach, the Visionary vs. Integrator puzzle, and how to build momentum with small wins that knock over bigger dominoes.

You’ll hear the messy, human parts too—marriage, money, calling, and the tension between helping people and “eating and living indoors.” We share the simple guardrails that keep you out of the ditch, the leadership law of “no surprises,” and the faith-and-focus mindset that lets you sleep at night because you served people well.

If you’re on the fence about coaching, or you’re leading alone and tired of guessing, this conversation gives you a clear, practical path: what to measure, when to ask for help, and how to turn knowledge into results with daily action.

📌 Key Topics:
 • Accountability that pays for itself—how we structure it ✅
 • Finding your “one thing” and stacking wins (the domino effect) ✅
 • Visionary vs. Integrator: who you are vs. where you’re most useful ✅
 • Pricing, permission, and the real ROI of coaching ✅
 • The “No Surprises” leadership law and psychological safety ✅
 • Tools that matter (big calendar, tight rhythms, human resources) ✅
 • When to hire a coach—and when an accountability stake is enough ✅
 • Freedom as removing weight vests, not adding hacks ✅

Listen in, pick your one thing, and take one bold step today you’ll thank yourself for in a year.

Chapters: 

00:00 Introduction and Welcome

00:52 Michael's Journey to Omaha

01:49 Meeting Jessica and Moving to California

05:04 Transition to Business Coaching

07:10 Challenges and Rewards of Coaching

12:00 Balancing Business and Personal Life

17:34 The Importance of Accountability

42:04 Finding Your One Thing

44:43 Tanner's Vision and Aspirations

45:21 Building Momentum with Small Wins

46:13 The Domino Effect and Achieving Goals

52:25 Visionaries vs. Integrators

53:23 The Importance of Passion in Leadership

01:02:54 Tools and Resources for Success

01:05:47 The Role of Coaching and Mentorship

01:06:54 The Value of Human Resources

01:14:00 Freedom and Removing Obstacles

01:15:54 The Right Time to Hire a Coach

01:24:08 Michael Owen's Contact Information and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Michael, appreciate you coming over here, sitting down with us. Uh, Tanner has mentioned you a number of times on the podcast, never by name or anything, but has referred to you as his business coach and stuff. And so, uh, he had the idea of having you come out here and kind of talk to us about Bus business coach and what that is, and, um, just kinda your walk in life and all that stuff.

So just kind of want to, first of all, thank you for joining us, and then second of all, you know, kind of kick it over to you and give us a little bit of your background and tell us a little bit about yourself, how you ended up in Omaha. Yeah. Well first of all, thanks for having me and, uh, and Tanner, thanks for being gracious enough to, to bring me out from behind the curtain.

I appreciate, I appreciate that. And, uh, having my name attached to you means a lot, so I appreciate that. You're, you're doing really well my friend. So, um. How I got to Omaha is a really fun story. So it's about 22-year-old story. So I was recently divorced, um, wasn't very good at dating and, and had two small children and some friends said, Hey, you should go to this church website.

And I went to this church website, uh, on February 14th. What a lonely day to be wife shopping on the internet on February 14th. Right? A very lonely day. Uh, and this, this cute girl from, uh, from Council Bluffs, Iowa, uh, did what they called a flirt. So she pressed a little button and it sent something to me, and it's the first one that had come to me on there.

And so we talked for a second, and then I was like, where the heck is Iowa? 'cause I was living in Central California, confusing Iowa and Idaho. Um, geography's not my strength. Uh, I don't drive long haul like, like Tanner is, so I don't, I don't have that perspective. At least I didn't then. And so. Then, uh, then when I realized that she was not hundreds but thousands of miles away, and as she likes to tell the story, she was a little bit too far to go for a date.

Um, I, I stopped talking to her for a minute and uh, and then some time went by and she pinged me back again in late April and said, Hey, why, why did you, why did you, and I forget what the term used to use, but we would call a ghost today. And I'm like, you are a long way away. And she's like, well, I'm asking you to talk to me, not marry me.

And so I said, that sounds good. I called her, we talked all night, um, what the next day, like hour sleep, gotta go lead a bunch of bank branches, uh, on the way to work. And Verizon, I don't even comb my hair. I had hair then I had a, I had a lot of it and I hadn't even combed it. And, uh, I'm like, man, I, I might be sprung for this role.

And so then it went a few more weeks just like that. And then best friend of mine's like, well, we gotta map this out. You, you gotta go get her. And so we threw some maps on a table and we're like, what would that trip look like? Hadn't proposed yet or anything, hadn't even met her face to face. Called up a local radio station here in the Omaha metro area that I, uh, I guess was covers to Quad States.

Had over a million listeners. And I said, Hey, I'd like to propose this role. I've never met on air. They were jacked. They're like, this is gonna be an epic failure. We are super excited to do this. They're like, so let's set this up. And, and they call her and they, they're like, Jessica, they're like, and she's like, yeah, did I win?

And they're like, well, maybe. And then I proposed and then she said yes. And a couple weeks later, I flew out here. I gave her a ring. I proposed like three more times. I really wanna make sure that she was, that she was sure that, that it wasn't like a Shrek and donkey on Fiona thing, that she actually, uh, that she was all in.

She came out, she, uh, came to California. Met my, my two kids. Um, I think I, my son is a elite level salesperson now, uh, was a great baseball closer. My oldest son and I, I say he closed the deal on the night before. She went back. He pulled her in and he whispered in her ear, are you gonna be my mom? And, uh, I think that while I gave her the ring, I think that, that Griffin closed the deal.

And so she moved to California and, uh, and I was doing some different things in business, running some really large segments of businesses for very recognizable, uh, fortune 500 companies. Uh, and she just, she just assumed the role of wife and mother and did an, an amazing job. And we refer to everything in our life as we, so we worked here, we did this.

She never worked out of the home, but she made sure that, that I didn't worry about the home when I was away from the home. And, um, and then opportunity came up in 2023. To come back to the Midwest. And, uh, it, it aligned with our son got a baseball scholarship, our first one together, our middle son, um, our first biological son together.

Jessica and I got a baseball scholarship and she wasn't ready to stop watching him play on the regular. And I had a business opportunity to work for some private equity. So I came out here and did that for about a year, which, uh, landed me with an introduction in real estate. And then real estate introduced me to professional coaching and the opportunity to really make a difference for small business owners.

And I was instantly sprung. And it, it just, the idea that you can go into a conversation and share 30 years of your failures with somebody and save them, save them mistakes and money is just, it's really attractive to me, particularly, I, I think my very favorite thing to do. Is, I know that every small business is one great decision away from scaling, going big.

They're also one poor decision away from folding their company up. So, so if I can get into enough conversations and help enough people, it's where that doesn't happen. It's where we get to, we get to scale and go big and have legacies and change lives for, for generations as opposed to looking back and going, if I only hadn't done this, then I get to go to bed every night feeling like I made a difference and that and, and Fortune 500 companies and working for corporate America.

I mean, I have some cool business stories and maybe we, we will get in that maybe we won't. I mean, I've grown p and ls by $40 million in one year and, and my family made some money because of that. You know, I was on a nice bonus structure, but at the end of the day, you don't sleep better because of that.

You didn't change somebody's life. You didn't look across a a, a FaceTime video and go like. Man, that man's life is gonna be better. 'cause we had this conversation this morning. And so that's the, that's the cool thing about what I do. Um, and I'm still figuring out how to do it well. I think, uh, I, I don't, I just naturally wanna help people.

So a lot of times I get off a conversation and somebody says, man, that was worth a million dollars to me and they didn't pay me anything. So I'm still trying to figure out how to help other people be really successful, but also eat and live indoors trying to get all this stuff together. So, yeah, probably a little bit too long of an intro, but no.

No, that's, that's great. And, and I want to dig into that dichotomy. 'cause I, you've talked many times with us privately about how difficult it is to balance, you know, in order to scale a business, you need to be, you know, shouting from rooftops, you know, talking about your business, getting testimonials. And we had a really good conversation about the, the, the problem with testimonials.

But there, there's also the dichotomy of the pricing structure. Like you said, you wanna make it affordable enough to, you know, entice people to work with you, but then they also outgrow it and they think that you can only add value for this much. So, uh, can you talk a little bit about that, those issues?

Yeah. So, and uh, thanks for bringing that up to, uh, Tanner. So you, uh, we'll make sure that I'm good and vulnerable here. So, uh, so yeah, so I think that, uh, I think. I, I, so first of all, I, I do, I do four things. And, and so that's part of, there's always, when you do four things, should you just do one thing and it's, and, and it, and one of the four definitely excites me most.

And so I'll kind of, I'll kind of go over that. So, so I do, I do keynote speaking maybe, maybe 10 times a year, maybe four of those are paid. And so, and the, and the goal of that is to get in front of people, hopefully yes. Inspire, motivate people, hopefully, where something actually changes on Monday. Not just that they're excited on Friday, when they hear the speech.

I, I would like them to actually go do something with the information. Um. But that's the purest way to introduce me and what I do to people is to get in front of them because I don't feel like I'm grandstanding when I was there, because I was actually paid to be there and say the things. So there's no, there's no guilt, there's no limiting beliefs, there's none of that stuff when you're there.

So I, I do keynote speaking and then, and then usually what happens outta that is I'll take some one-on-one clients and, and that will come out of there. And occasionally those one-on-one clients will then hire me in like A-C-O-O-C-F-O type of role where they'll say, Hey, we wanna bring you on a, as a consultant for more hours, more frequently.

And then, and then probably the favorite thing that I do is because I get to help more people at once, is I do something akin to small group fitness for small business owners. Uh, and this is my very favorite thing. I get to put people in rooms with people they wouldn't normally be in rooms with. And watch their lives change because of it.

It is really cool when you can put eight to 20 small business owners from different industries in a room, do a little 15 minute leadership segment at the start of the hour, and then let everybody run through their business for 15 minutes. And then kind of the signature. The thing I'm most proud of that we do is we'll spend the back half of the, of the meeting solving a problem for somebody, and then set up closed network GroupMe app function where the leaders keep talking all month long and usually, so last year we did this for the year and I wasn't sure it was working.

I mean, everybody's showing up, they're engaged, they're saying great things. They're asking if they could get people in the middle year. All that stuff felt right. But what I would say that I knew it started to work is the language started to change in the summer and we reached a point, what I would call like executive dialogue.

Hmm. And it was no longer messages in the GroupMe app. Were no longer fluff. I mean, it was just like very first one that I can point to. We had a local business owner here that was trying to scale, had a business that is, that is driven by, um, the, the number of, of route or, or trucks on route, um, that they have.

And, and I'm trying to be as vague as I can that I kind of give away who they are. But, uh, but they were trying to go from, from, from three teams to 40. And so they hired, they did it backwards and they hired a bunch of people and they didn't yet have the vehicles except people stand around and they're like, guys, I'm effed and or you two.

And it was, it, it was a watershed moment and for the entire, the entire team and by, so we just, we just celebrated in December, kind of brought the group to a close. Um. 18 of the 20 members are coming back. So I think that shows value. That made me feel like, man, that that group had really high value. And then the, the really cool thing is 16 of the 18 over doubled their business last year and it has absolutely zero to do with me.

Zero. Just putting the right people in the room and trying to facilitate a conversation to make sure it lasts through the rest of the month. That, that's my favorite thing to do. To, to look out and to go. I driving down the road on the way here today, I passed wraps on vehicles, on trucks, on billboard of six companies.

I had a chance to work with local last year. Wow. That's the thing, that's the kind of makes you go like, man, maybe you actually matter. Like that's the, that's the fun stuff. Mm-hmm. So you mentioned mindset, what, and limiting beliefs is nothing. You mentioned. Do you find a lot of people, so you get in a room and you're talking, maybe you're doing a sales pitch, maybe you're just doing a keynote, what, whatever it is, and the fact that your business coach comes up, do you find that people have a limiting mindset to coaching?

I can do it on my own. I don't need a coach. Um, whatever, whatever their reasoning is. And is that fairly common? At least my, my vision of people that it seems very common, but I always make the argument that Michael Jordan had like five coaches and it's the greatest to ever do it. And I don't care what the LeBron haters to have to say the greatest to ever do it needed five coaches.

I think everybody can get some kind of coaching, but do you find that to be one of the main. Limiting beliefs that you've come across. Yeah, a hundred percent. So, so first, let's, let's, let's, let's end. The first argument, MJ is the greatest. Kobe second, LeBron third. That, that's, let's, let's go ahead and lemme have, and I'd say LeBron's fourth and third seat can stay open.

There you go. Yeah. So, I mean, you, you can erase the early part of the career where there was just too much choking and, and not wanting the ball early. I mean, definitely he's evolved. He's a better player now. He'll have all the records because of longevity and all the things. But, and I think the game's played really different.

I mean, you can have the same conversation in, in football. Uh, will there ever be a quarterback better than Dan Marino? We don't, we don't know. There's people with more yards than him now, but the game's different. They, they, it, so, so I think that it is a really hard argument to have, but I think the eye test, I'm just not seeing people fear LeBron the way they did Kobe and mj.

Mm-hmm. And, and, and I, I still think back when I think about. Who do you want to have the ball at the end of the game? And they did a survey of all the GMs late in Kobe's career, and a hundred percent of these GMs said, oh, Kobe Bryant, if I can choose anybody, Kobe Bryant gets the ball. And I think if they'd asked the same survey during mjs run, it would've been, oh, give the ball to mj.

I'm just not sure there's ever been a point in, in LeBron's career where they would, where everybody in the league would naturally say, give the ball to LeBron. I mean, that's, there have been teams that he has been on like with Steph Curry, but I would say give the ball to Steph, not, not, not him. So, so that's that.

So, um, that's the, that's our hot take, right? That's probably the one that makes the whole thing go, go, go viral for guys sitting around having a conversation about, about who the goat is of basketball. Right? Yeah. It should be an argument though. It, it shouldn't be. It, it, and I think, uh, I think for your mindset question specifically, I think in general, when people think of the idea of help, they think it means weakness.

They, they a hundred percent do. But, and I've shared this with Tanner before when I was working in the fitness industry. I'm standing one of the largest oldest health clubs in the country, and I'm standing with a, uh, a wrestling megastar. We're just gonna say that we're gonna leave the, the, the name way.

And, and, and he's like standing with me and my, and my general manager of the club at the time, I'm running multiple club. This is my general manager, this really large club, my five largest in the country is just a, a, a beast of a, of a building. A couple of miles from the SAP center in San Jose. And so here's this mammoth of a human being that everybody who walks through door knows who they are and they want to come up and they wanna touch this person's abs.

And like they have no personal space. But he turns my Gemini and he said, I can tell you everybody who walks through the club if they're gonna be successful or not. And I said, that's a pretty audacious statement. And he's like, winner, winner, loser, loser, loser, loser. And he's just goes on for maybe three minutes and I'm like.

And that's super judgmental. Like, are you Jesus? And he said, he said, no, but in the gym, I kind of am. And I, and I said, well, everybody wants to touch your abs, so I'm gonna take that as gospel. But w what leads you to this point? And he said, well, successful people in life don't wake up every day trying to be successful.

They wake up trying to fail to figure out where they're not at yet. And in order to do that in fitness, you have to have a spotter. So if you show up at the gym without a spotter, you didn't show up here to push your limits, there's no chance you're gonna be one of the most successful people here if you're not here to push your limits.

And so I think I try to help people see that mindset that is, it's not my job to make them better. It's my job to be there for them so they can be the best version of themself and do the things that they were always meant to do. That's the, I'm just the spotter. I'm not lifting the weight. I'm not, I mean, I, I might get animated when, when the weight's three quarters of the way up.

Can I know you can do it, and I can see that moment when you're about to give in that it's, this is gonna be that moment where there are some decisions we talked about in the last segment that there are some decisions that may make you broke and some that may make you rich. I believe most of the time it's the same decision.

It's that moment when the bar is three quarters of the way off your chest. Do you take the risk and go all in or do you set it down and come back next week? That's, I think, so that's my job. My job is to get people to, that are already three quarters of the way there that I know they can do it and just get them to believe in themselves enough to push it forward.

I'm not, I'm not the guy responsible for it. I'm not any of that stuff. I, I just try to ask good questions and, and use analogies that maybe land the point that I think they already know, like that. I, I think most of the time, and, and I mean since Tanner since you, you kind of brought yourself up. Most of the time when Tanner and I are talking, he already knows the answer.

He's a wicked smart guy and, and he's, he's just. Trying to be certain of the answer because he loves his family and he wants to make sure that he's, you know, got somebody that he's vetted the decision with. When he, when he does this, this thing, it's, it's really lonely to get in that boat and to be paddling and then to look around and go, man, I'm in the middle of the ocean alone.

And it's not that having one other person in the boat with you is necessarily gonna get you to shore faster, but you're not alone. And there's something too, being in the middle of the ocean alone, it is, it, you can't, if, if you've ever boated been in the ocean, you don't have to be too far from shore to not know where the heck you are.

And then if you get underwater and you get 20 feet underwater, you can't tell what's up and down. Sometimes it's just really simple. Somebody just pokes you and says, oh, let's some air out, because it's the last thing you would think of if you're underwater, is to give up some of your oxygen. But it's actually the only way that you can survive is to give up your oxygen, because that's gonna tell you up and down.

So the very thing that you think will kill you is actually what's going to save you. And I think sometimes having a coach can reveal that. And, and what I try to do with, with Tanner specifically is he's, he made me very comfortable. And so I try to share, like all the times that I split fell, rolled down the stairs and I'm like, Hey, I, that's not a terrible idea.

'cause I once did it, it had a terrible outcome for me. I rolled down the stairs, you're better than me. Maybe you won't roll down the stairs, but, but maybe you will. So let's, let's talk this through and, and see if it was a, if it was a bad idea or if I poorly executed it. And, and a lot of times that's, well, he's like, I was thinking about that anyway, so.

Hmm. Yeah. Well, and I, one of my favorite analogies is for every one mile road, there's two miles a ditch. And I'd say that what coaching does is it provides some guardrails. Now, it's not gonna protect you from going in the ditch, but it'll prevent some of the mistakes from happening. And so I think that those, those guardrails are accountability and guidance.

And sometimes that guidance, like you said, is permission. Like we're looking for permission. Not that you are, you know, the decision maker, but it's more of just bouncing these ideas and validating, is this a good idea or am I completely nuts? And sometimes there is times where you're completely nuts. But the, I think the accountability piece is where, like you said, if, if you're going to the gym by yourself, like you're not gonna hold yourself accountable, you give yourself that easy out.

Yeah. 'cause you reward yourself for already being at the gym. Right? Like, you're already, I'm better than most people. Like I'm, I'm a participant, not a sponsor. I, I say that all the time. 'cause in, in the health and fitness industry. Um, the team Purple, we'll call 'em Team Purple. Team Purple thrives on a model that is 93 7.

So 93% of the people who purchase a gym membership do not go at least once a quarter. They are sponsoring the lives of the 7% that actually go to the gym at least quarterly, right? Mm-hmm. So, so a participant or a sponsor and, and that, and so, yes, I think that that what you said is it's a hundred percent accurate, um, at least to what I try to do.

And I think that, I think that's the other thing about coaching, because I think if you watch the NFL game, we just look at the two sidelines and you'll see 20 different styles of coaching. That's, that's the, and, and I mean, it, it's funny that when they take these surveys, they say that there are so many ways that Sean McVay and Andy Reeder are similar.

Now look at those two dudes and tell me that you would be able to gar that from, from just first appearance. There's. There's no way. One of 'em is doing Nugg e commercial and the other one's doing health and fitness commercial. So there's, they, they look different, but they're after, they're after really, really similar things.

And I think that's most people, most people that, that want to engage a coach, they wanna know what they don't know. That's where they come to a coach. But by the end, they, I think what people crave is, is just solace in what they do know is that, you know, I'm not nuts, like you said, like I, I think, or if I'm nuts, I'm nuts for the right reason.

I'm taking a, I'm taking a risk that if I have, I can think every coach should have something that they think is their superpower. I would say if I have one and, and I don't know that I do, but if I have one, it would be discernment. I can hear an idea and usually immediately go to what could go wrong there.

And, uh, and so we're talking about when I got here, the book Rocket Fuel, right? I think that's the difference between a visionary and an integrator. A visionary. It's what could go right here and you need somebody in your camp that says, that will be amazing if that all works out. But potentially we could run into that two miles of that you're talking about and get stuck there.

Let's think through what, let's think through all the things and, and, and a lot of times the, the ditch is you, it's people who think New Year's resolutions. It's just crazy. It is, it is so crazy. Being in, in the fitness industry, the number of people that walked through a door on, on January 1st was just getting smaller and smaller.

By the way, I didn't have any problem getting on the treadmill on, on the second at the Y this year. Hmm. And it, and it's at 5:00 AM at prime crime, and by the fourth, nobody was there. So it, it is getting smaller and smaller. Now, I live in the Midwest and we build, we build linemen here, not skilled players.

So, so maybe the treadmill, maybe I was looking at the wrong part of the gym, but I would say when you're, when you're thinking that whole, the, the whole thing all the way through, I think that there is an opportunity to just approach it slightly different. And, and, and that can be the test. Like you and I talk about that all the time, Hannah.

It's like, what is the test for this? How will we know if it is successful? And so when you have a, a year's resolution, like I have a, I have a business client the other day that told that, that she told me, you'd be so proud of me. I have seven goals for this year. I will not tell you exactly how I responded, but, but we, we, we arrived at seven was too many.

And that maybe we should, maybe we should attack it as four at the at, at the top. Um, but she's like, I'm doing all seven things and she ran me through all the things she's doing, and she's super proud of herself. I'm proud of her too. Um, we, our relationship's been, been going for a minute and, and this, she's motivated, she is excited, she has some momentum.

And I think that could, when you get excited and you have momentum, you can end up destroying your own momentum by going too many different directions. Right? So trying to pull her back to like, Hey, I, I try to, this is something I steal from my faith, but I, I try to get people to, if you're going to have goals, have 'em in four buckets every year, right?

So you sit on a social goal. Everybody should have a social role. Like this is a great social outlet for you guys, right? And you should have a social role then you should have a physical goal. I, I believe deeply in my faith that our bodies are our temples, right? We were given these things to, to practice for how we would operate, how clean we would be.

So, so then you should have that. Then you should definitely, absolutely. Have a spiritual goal and, and that you're, that you're working on every single day. And then, and then the last one, I, it's, it's intellectual or, or financial like, but bucket that one. And I think those two a lot of times go hand in hand.

I, as you learn stuff, we live in a learn environment, right? So as you learn stuff, it, you can apply it, you can, you can grow your, your net wealthy, your net worth. So the, those are kinda the four buckets. And what I tend to find is people come and they have seven goals and six, seven 'em are in one bucket.

And they're like, this is just so, so what I try to do with people is, and you and I have worked on this before, Tanner is before you try to decide who you wanna be, tell me who you don't wanna be. So what is the one thing that you absolutely do not wanna be talking about in 2027? Because circling back to, to five minutes ago when I brought up the needles resolution, so the same guy that all year long ate cookies never got under a barbell, is just gonna wake up and magically be a different dude on January 1st.

I haven't seen this last very long. Right? The people who are successful that we point to and said, oh, she started a health and fitness plan on January 1st. Something else happened in her life. My wife and I, we were that success story. We lost a hundred pounds in 90 days. Started a health and fitness plan on January 2nd in Bakersfield, California.

Okay, cool. All of our friends and family are like, man, you guys really executed that, uh, that, that, uh, new Year's resolution. You live it. Long timeout. It wasn't a year's resolution on, on, uh, on a Friday the 13th. In the spring of the year prior, my wife got a terrible car accident. Our middle son was ejected from the vehicle, nearly died if, if not for the Lord's Grace and some Hell's Angels that both played a role.

The Hell's Angel lifting the vehicle off of him and the Lord for, for seeing him through a night when they said he wouldn't make it through and he walked away the next day. If not for that situation, we don't have our son. It put us in a state of reflection. We spent the next nine months looking at family pictures, and I was seeing a lot of pictures of me at nearly 300 pounds standing on sidelines of a bunch of sporting events, coaching young men.

And I'm like, what type of an example am I setting for these? What type of, an example of I setting for my young sons, my older son for my daughter? And so we spent nine months in reflection talking about it. And then December comes and there's this challenge. And my wife is at fresh and easy grocery store right next to the gym.

And she walked in, took 'em a picture, told 'em our story, and we were in this contest. We had to go away in, um, took a bunch of pictures with our shirts off. They were not good looking pictures. Um, they, mine wouldn't be awesome today, but it was worse then, I promise you. Uh, and so it, and, and we were in and, and then, and then there was a large cash prize and a couple of our friends that got in at two.

So all of the components were there. We had an inflection moment in our life. There was the appropriate amount of time for us to digest it, to put together. We wanted to be different. This contest shows up. There's a monetary driver, there's a competitive piece of it. All of the things tied up. But to people looking from the outside, it's like, oh, they had an year's resolution.

They execute against it. It doesn't usually work like that. It doesn't work like that in business either you don't have an idea and the next day I'm just gonna be a different human. I that, I think that's what people think the internet teaches them. Well, I can wake up tomorrow and be Alex, or most, as long as they do the hard thing more.

I, I don't think that's it. I mean, he, Alex done a great job recently of showing us all his baby face pictures back from back when he was a personal trainer and he's sitting in front of a, of a whiteboard. And I think the cool part about his story is that it was 13 years ago, and I think of that as a small number that you go from personal trainer sleeping in the back of your gym to 13 years later.

You're recognized for everything but fitness. That's, that's the journey. But how many people are willing to make bets that are, that, that take 13 years to cash? Everybody wants to walk into the gym and they're gonna be down three pounds at the end of the week. That's, that's, that's 10,500 calories stack.

10,500 calories up on your counter. I love cookies. It's a lot of cookies. It is a lot of cookies that you're gonna put on the counter because you're just not gonna eat this week or every week forever. It, it, it, I, there are people who can do it, but I, I think that is a, that is a, that is like betting free on the roulette table.

The odds of it hitting on a regular basis are really low. Hmm. That answer your question, Tanner? Absolutely. What do you think, kind of piggyback on Tanner's question, do you think accountability and coaching is more important than. What you learned from the coach, because you said a lot of times Tanner already knows the answer.

He's just asking for permission or whatever, and then you're there to hold him accountable. I, I guess to make it controversial in the question, do you think having a good accountability partner would be just as beneficial as, or potentially just as beneficial as a coach? Or do you think having both to Tanner's analogy, keeping you out both sides of the ditch is best?

Well, it's kinda like that you were just in my home, so this has, that, this has been a hot button conversation in our house lately. So my wife has, um, has said that her 2027 thing that she's not gonna be thinking about that. That she's gonna stop the yo-yo, uh, weight effect. Being up, being down, being up, being jumped.

And she's like, I don't wanna be one of those people, one of those. Uh, and so we go to the gym on the second and a couple things happens. So somebody comes up to, uh, us and goes, oh, you guys here from you guys resolution, always the best compliment to get right. Like, hello, chubby, has that been a minute since you've been here?

And, and in my head I'm like, man, I once led a team of a thousand fitness professional and a $50 million p and l in fitness. So, um, so I know the things right? I'm, I'm, I'm not always doing all the things. I ran two marathons last year. I figured out how to do really long, intense endurance things at a pace that doesn't raise my heart rate above one 30, I can, I can do it relatively calm and still eat cookies and drink soda while running.

So am I, am I a leader? Am I dumb? I don't know. Like I, I, I, I think the argument could be made for both them. But I, I think to the accountability piece, my most successful clients have at some point in the relationship ask me what is the financial stake to take the accountability piece today? And so I have a program that I, and I have a handful of people that, that's all they pay me for.

They don't pay me for any of the business coaching. They just pay me to, at five o'clock each day. They send me a text and they tell me they either did the thing or they didn't do the thing, and they paid me a bunch of money to answer that text and to give 'em a hard time that they didn't do the thing.

And so, and that's where if you look at just like sheer money that I earn per hour, per minute, like that pays really well. Now, not as well as a mentor of mine. A mentor of mine paid a thousand dollars a day to his former secretary to do that. And he said it was super important to him that it was somebody that he saw that didn't have as much skill as him.

And he's like, because the hard part, the pain is writing the check and not getting what you deserve because of an action you failed to take. And being able to, to do those things, like that's super different than, so I think there are different types of coaching, right? It's, it is what does the person, what does the person want most?

And so once you get to the stage and the relationship where you're like, I know exactly what I want, and I know exactly the actions to take, then you're ready for pure accountability. Coach. You don't need the advice Now that may change you, you will grow, you'll hit a plateau again. And then it will be time to discover what is the one thing that I need to do to go to the next step.

And then you go through business development coaching again and say you get ready, but you need both and you don't need 'em at the same time. That would be my answer to that. And I think that's where some coaches go wrong. They're trying to, they're trying to discover the one thing while holding somebody accountable to something they haven't discovered yet.

Well, that's really dumb. You should probably figure out where you're gonna drill that has oil before you, before you hold somebody accountable to drill into hundred feet a day. Because we're gonna go nowhere. We're gonna, we're gonna say we drilled a very deep hole, but we didn't make any money. That that's not, and I don't think anybody's gonna be happy with that.

So that's maybe not the answer you were looking, looking for because it's kind of a blended answer. But I think I, I think that, uh, and the reason I used my own last year in the month of May, I did a million steps in a month. So it's a lot. It is a lot. Yes. Um, and I, and I put the whole journey out on social and I had like 50 people who cared out of all the vast internet.

Nobody care because it, who am I? But I didn't do it for them. I did it for this idea because I wanted to show people that there are a lot of people that are already doing wildly hard things that we just don't think of. And the people who started engaging were retail workers, postal workers, meter readers, and they're like, I never thought about it.

You got me looking at my, at my stop. I'm pretty close to a million. If I did anything after work, I could get to a million. And these people are just doing their job. They're not doing their job and getting 28,000, 32,000 steps, say ride on the threshold of hit that 35,000 every day for a month, they get a million steps, right?

And they'll be able to go say they did something really cool that less than one in a thousand people have ever done in their life. And put yourself in that really small percent. You're that close and you probably don't look at your postman and immediately go, now that guy, he's got it going on fitness wise.

But technically he's getting a million steps hit. And if you listen to the media, the media says get 10,000 steps on daily average, like you're, you're an elite cardio condition, well then what's the mailman? He's freaking David Goggins of, of internal cardio condition, even though he may not look at it. So what's fitness then, right?

Like that. So how does that all work together? But, so I think that my answer to it is nearly every app that is out there that has anything to do with personal development is trying to hold you accountable. That's what it's trying to do. It is, it is there to be accountable and you're paying for that happen.

The more skin you put in the game. The harder the thing is, I recently told a story out, uh, on my, uh, on my YouTube channel, little five minute video on an accountability on a, um, on a real estate agent that I was coaching about a year and a half ago. And this guy's good. He's really good, like a elite door rocker.

And, and he's vocal and door knocking is not fun here in the summer when humidity his I, and it's hot and it's really not fun when there's snow on the ground. But he is really good. I mean, every time he knocks 200 doors, he can basically guarantee a client that's, and so he, he'll knock on our doors, he'll take a listing every couple of listings, turns it and turns it, every couple of showings, or I'm sorry, listing appointments turns into a listing taken, right?

So then he's got this listing and then he sells like 96% of his listings. So he's like. I gotta get more listings. I'm like, you gotta knock more doors. We already know, we, we know the one thing that it. And so we made a little bet that I told him if I was gonna keep being his coach, that if he didn't hit 200 doors by noon on Saturday, he owe me a thousand dollars.

I said, so there's three things that can happen. You can knock the doors, you can stop coaching with me, or you can write me the check. The choice is yours. If you're in control, you have free agency. God put you with agency. I'm not gonna eliminate your choices. So, and we had one week, you might remember it, not last time, but the summer before, you might remember the week when every day was over 110.

And they said Omaha hadn't had that like ever. And he was running a little behind. I'm getting the 20 doors in both 25 now. I'm like, it's not happen brother. Like you are setting up a really bad. And he is like, the weather's gonna break. The weather's gonna break, the weather's gonna break. The weather's gonna break, and it didn't.

Of course, the Friday ended up being the 114 degree day. It ended up being the worst day, and he had to knock a bunch doors and on door, 1 98 for his 200. And you can't make this stuff up on door. 1 98. He gets, he gets somebody who gives him a referral that becomes a listing. But it's not just how it happened, it's, it's, it's what was said.

So she says, Hey, I'm going to a PTA event tonight, and I have a real estate agent on that that I was gonna give the referral to, but she's not out here knocking and 114 degrees you are. And I want somebody who will work that hard for me. And so she gives them the listing. Well, listing ends up the way it works out, it ends up becoming dual-sided with a referral.

Ends up being four deals, ends up being $30,000 in revenue. And he's told this story like many, many times on, on my behalf. Like, go see this guy because of this. Like, he'll do these things. He, he's super cool with that, but what he said was, I didn't do it for the 30 grand. There's just no way in hell I was writing Mike a thousand dollars check.

And so like that's the, the, the key that, that's where really accountability really works, right? My best trainers in the gym industry were not the people that looked perfect. They were the people that earned the right to hold their clients accountable and, and then did that, and then their clients change their lives.

I mean, so I think people sometimes gravitate to coaching for the wrong reason. Sometimes they get into coaching because they wanna be able to say, my coach, and they wanna be a point, they wanna be able to go, that's my coach. And then, and look at her. She looks amazing. She did all these things. I'm with her.

Everything's gonna be great. And then there are people who gravitate to coaching kid, they say, this year's gonna be different than next year. I'm gonna get different results. And then you're, you're looking for two different humans when you're, when you're doing that. That's, uh, not that, not that you, not that you can't be not follicly challenged and, and jacked and be a good coach.

That's not what I'm, that's not what I'm saying. Uh, but I, I think, I think people would say that John Maxwell's one of the best coaches in the world. I don't think people would say he's an elite athlete or that he's overly good looking or any of those things. I think, uh, he knows what he is talking about and, and he's willing to love, love you like crazy and then at the right moment holds you accountable.

I think any, both is the, is the thing, but, but if you do one. If you go accountable before you've earned the right to do it, you're you're gonna lose. That's the hard part. I think that, so I brand myself as an accountability coach 'cause it's my favorite thing to do. 'cause it's where, it's where the real difference happens.

Um, it's when somebody grants you that permission and, and they, and they bet with money they don't have. Like, that is a, that people do amazing things. When you bet with money you don't have. Like that's the, it it's you. I, I think my favorite one that I, I just went through the hormoz theories again. Just I, I like to refresh on all my books in January and one of my favorite ones that he has in there is the, the accountability of if you don't hit a certain metric, you have to donate to a cause that you don't agree with.

The best I've seen is, uh, you like, write your ex-girlfriend a thousand dollars check. Yeah. So something I like, I I That's terrific. Yeah. That's, I was like, man, talking about feet to the fire. So, and imagine doing that, being married. Hmm. Yeah, when I, when I've heard it go, when I, when I've heard it, it was always the, like, single people, you know, that have done it, but you know that you're, you're still in the market.

So Yeah. I wouldn't wanna, that's funny, Nicole, if you're listening, I think Janor just came with a great challenge here. We're doing a million of revenue this year. So you mentioned a few times when you were just speaking the one thing, the one thing, the one thing, you got the book right there. How does someone find their one thing that they need to do, how do they know Accountability is great, but what am I being held accountable for or to, and how, how does someone find that?

So. And I think you get 10 coaches in the room, they're gonna tell you 10 different things on that. But I, I mean, and so with Gary Keller's book, the One thing, there's an exercise in there that, uh, that, that will take you through. A way to discover how I do it personally is, is I try to get to know the client a little bit, uh, and try to figure out the things that they, that, that really wake them up in the morning, as Marcus Buckingham said.

Like, what are the, what are the things that, that, that keep you up at night, that get you excited? Because I think if there's already some level of passion towards the thing, that's good. And then, and then it is, well, what do you think would take you to feel like that more often? And it is like, so my, my wife, she loves group fitness.

She loves the tribal feeling that takes place in group fitness. So for, for her it is a so, but the Y only has my favorite class a couple times. One of her unlocks the end of last year is her instructors were traveling to multiple facilities to each class. So for an extra few hundred dollars a month, we could put her in a position that she could do her favorite thing to get to her one thing the most frequently.

So I think, I think you have to be able to see a clear path that is both gonna be hard. But I mean, 'cause her, her, her favorite exercise routine is high fitness. And, and I've done it a few times and I come away limping and, and gassed, and there's something about dancing and then your off time is burpees.

So that, that, that is going to guarantee that, that, that, I don't know where they came up with this high. Like, you're gonna, you're gonna feel high when it, when it, when you're done, you're gonna feel lightheaded. That's what high feels like. You're gonna, you're gonna get there. But, so I think, I think that's kind of how I work at uncovering is say, what do you wanna accomplish?

And usually people have some idea where they, where they wanna go. Uh, maybe not great. If they don't, then we gotta go through, we have backup and go through the whole Cheshire cat, uh, exercise of, you know, Alice approaches the cat and where do we wanna go if you don't know where you wanna go, then have to do, but, so we'll go back there and we'll, we'll kind of get an idea of where do we wanna, where do we wanna end up?

And oftentimes I end up working with visionary people. So, uh, and, and Tanner in full disclosure, when he and I work together, he, he has his visions that'll change the world. He has really high aspirations of, of, of how to bring, um, very high white collar education to blue collar guys and, and, and change their life for their sweat equity.

But between that aspirational goal. And where we're at, there's a lot of steps that have to take place. And, and then, and I don't even know if it's one to two with Paved Road and, and and Ditch Dirt Road. I think it may be one to 19. It it, I think it's, it's, it, it's hard because, um, you know, we're having, it's Hannah and I have been having conversations about is in order to earn the right, to get that person to believe that they can be that person, we first just have to satisfy their need for pizza and beer on Friday.

Like we have to figure out how to do that. Right. So, so, uh, so how do we get that first unlock for, for the person he's trying to serve? Might be that they just don't have to think about the size of pizza they get. And if they can get this sits pack instead of two beers, that that Friday is just a little easier for them.

And then when make Friday a little easier, then maybe we make Monday a little easier. They can fill the gas tank instead of. Worrying about like, like, hey, three quarters will get me through the week and then I'll fill it again on Friday. They can just fill. So it's getting them little wins that builds the belief.

And that's what Gary Heller does talk about in the one thing, right? He's talking about that whole domino effect. That, that, and I'm gonna mess this up, but the whole idea that is one domino can be a traditional domino, but because of force and momentum that the seventh domino can be the size of your door and it will fall over because of the momentum.

It gets bigger and bigger. So it's, sorry. So it's just getting that, that that first domino out of the way and, and I try to sometimes do it fairly sneaky. I got, I don't want somebody to think I'm helping them back to the part of our conversation. So it's like, how do we get momentum? How do we get somebody, um, to that point, and, and I think back, my wife hated running.

Then we ran a 5K with some youth because we were gonna take 'em on a, on a hike up Mount Whitney, which is the tallest mountain in continental us. So they're like, if you can't run a 5K, you definitely can't hike Whitney. So we were running this 5K and she beat me. And um, I was not super happy about that.

Uh, even though prior to that I, I couldn't run a block and now I'm running a 5K, doesn't matter. Jessica beat me. So, and I, and I wasn't super happy about that, so, but I used that moment when I wanted her to run a marathon later. I'm like, well, you already beat me so we know you can do this. And so, so I think, let's say, where do we find the wins to create the momentum that that's likely to get us there.

So I think your one thing is not as important as people make it. It's just once you decide on it, now let's create massive momentum that gets there. 'cause your one thing, I think what the, what, the one thing the book stops short of it makes it seem like that's the only destination forever in life. That's the part I don't agree with.

I believe your one thing can be more like, hey, my one thing is to climb the highest mountain that is life. And recognizing that there might be one things that are just plateaus. Long way that I hit something and, and I get to have this moment of reflection where I get to look back down and go, man, I did that.

I climbed a long way, my client did that. My client climb a long way, right? And then I look up and I go, okay, what's next? What's the ne what's the next one thing? So, so that's why I start with what is the one thing that you just feel like is taking up far too much of your time and worry and cortisol release and all the negative stuff we talk about, how we eliminate that from your life.

How will we not be talking about bat next year? And if we get there, I think you're gonna, you're gonna start to see Domino some this fall. So people are usually quicker to, this is the thing that annoys me. Everybody knows it. As soon as you ask him, like, what's the one thing you wish that you didn't spend time on?

Everybody, everybody knows it now. Sometimes it's an action that does them good and, and they're, and I hear people say, well, I wish I wasn't talking about lead gen next year. Okay, well the business you're in requires lead gen, so are you gonna switch businesses? Well, no. I just wish I wasn't talking about it.

Okay, so you don't wanna talk about it at all? No. Okay. Then that means that we need to hire somebody that operations for you and then somebody that works for them in Legion. How much money are you to make to do, to not do that thing? Oh, well, operate Good operators gonna be 75,000 a year. Then I'm paying a Legion, another 56.

Okay, so, so we need to generate an extra 250,000 in profits so you can put money in your pocket, feel the win, and you can go higher and leverage out these two positions. Yes. Okay, cool. Now let's build a plan around you doing the work that gets us to two 50. So the, the best way that we're gonna not be talking about lead gen next year is to do a bunch of lead gen next year.

Like, I hate to tell you that, but that's where Alex Ram is, right? When he said, it's likely doing more of the boring thing you don't wanna do, it's gonna get you there. But he doesn't do lead gen himself anymore. He's a master of lead gen. He graduated from the School of Legion. He did another plateau going into another thing.

But for one year all he did was every morning from 5:00 AM to 9:00 AM and then he went and worked his day job and then from 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM he did lead gen hopefully, so he would never have to do lead gen again. Right. That, that's it. So I think that's probably a really long-winded answer, but that's kind of how I try to, to get there.

So to get them to feel the pain of, of the thing of like, Hey, I don't wanna be doing this. Next year and certainly not the rest of my life. And then from there we can determine, okay, what are the best actions and what is the one key action? So at the end of every day, you have to just look yourself in the face and say, the likelihood that I'm gonna finish everything on my list every day is really low.

It's not gonna happen. If it is, you're awesome. Then, then you get to leapfrog Jordan and Kobe and LeBron and all the people that we were talking about earlier. You get, you get to be the, the Tom Brady of whatever your thing is, but it's just not likely to happen. So what what is likely to happen though is if you, if you figure out the one most important action, most important domino, and you don't miss on that for at least a portion of the day, and you stack that day after day after day after day, you will win.

And, and sometimes that one must do is a don't do. Hmm. So it is just, I got through another day, like if you, if it, it's my dad was, um. Very heavy drinker through most of my childhood. And so later in life. And one day he decided that, that day was the last day and he decided he loved Coors Light, so he had little silver cans.

So he, he decided with his last beer, in his case of, of Coors Light, and he ended up moving three subsequent times. And that last beer went with him. And he just, you know, the mantra I had, I had another day where I did my, one thing I didn't drink because he said, I'm not gonna be dealing with this again in a, in a year where, where I'm talking about all the repercussions from drinking regularly.

So I, that's, that's how I attack it, is that like, let's go remove some pain from your life. I think when you remove pain, you find joy. I, and I think that. The one thing, in order to utilize it properly, you have to say the whole phrase. Because some people just say, well, I've got a to-do list of 15 things.

I'm gonna pick one and that's gonna be my one thing today. But the whole phrase is, what's the one thing that if by doing it makes everything else easier or unnecessary? A hundred percent. And what you're saying is if your end goal is to be in shape, your one thing does not need to be a hundred cold calls today.

Mm-hmm. What is the one thing that's gonna help you get there? And so, um, one of the things that you, you talked about in there was, uh, visionaries and, and integrators. And probably from when our first coaching sessions, we, Nicole and I had this preconceived notion that, that I was the integrator and she was the visionary.

And we have moments of, you know, being the opposite for each other. But you brought to our attention that I am much more of a visionary, just naturally. And so me trying to operate in an integrator type role was conflicting to my personality type. And that was where we were getting friction in the business.

And that one switch right there of her taking more of the in integrator role and me being more of the visionary in my business, that I think that opened a lot of doors for us. And so that discernment of identifying who we are, I think, I think that played a major role in the success that we've had this year.

But when you're looking for those kinds of things, what, what qualities are you looking for to decide whether one is one or the other? Passion unequivocally it's passion. So you, you know, you, you brought up the story with you and Nicole, uh, um, when, when you talk about the future, you light up, when Nicole talks about the present, she lights up.

And to me that is just a clear visionary integrator thing is that she is really excited when, at the end of a single day she's been very productive. That's an operator, that's an integrator. That's the person you want. And I, and, and, and by the way, that's the person that, that people who work in the field want.

They wanna run through a door for somebody that at the end of the day can say five up top, everybody, we got our thing done today. Like, good job. But behind that person, behind every great one of those, you, you need a visionary that is like, man, if we stack days like that, we could hear. So when it's hard, there's this and that.

The thing is, the visionary is, is not as visible and not as necessary on a day in and day out basis, but on the hard days, they're 10 times more necessary or the whole business folds. And so it's just, it's. It's also, it is looking for, and this is the wrong phrase for it, but for lack of a better one, visionaries do not need as much regular attaboy.

They're much happier with just, I know where I'm going, so I'm fine. And I, and they're also very focused on how do they, uh, how do they make space for everybody else inside their dream? An operator is much more, an integrator is much more, we're gonna go dominate. And if you're with me, you're with me. And so they, they're, there's just a handful of things that that showed up in, like you and Nicole's personalities.

But, um, it's, it's really interesting for me being from the, the West coast, you would think where all innovation happens, right? I was in the Silicon Valley, the mo, the mothership of innovation. There's far more integrators there. I mean, mark Zuckerberg walks around with, there's one Mark Zuckerberg, and he's got floors full of integrators, right?

So it's, it, it, the, the visionary is a unicorn. They're much harder to find because they're okay being lonely and they're okay with their dreams being greatly gratifying, gratifying later, but really slow to get there. And so that, that it's, uh, and Nicole said one thing. She's like, I just wanna go work really hard, and at the end of the day, no, I did a good job.

And you're like, I'll just love it if a handful of truck drivers learned invest. So to me that's a, that's, that's super clear for me. So I've used the example before that, um. The guy that recruited me into real estate, he brought me in and he did the whole like, you know, where are you? Where do you wanna be?

We did the vision boarding thing. We did the whole thing. And then he tells this story, and I, and I've told this to Tanner before, so this is one of my favorite leadership moments. I, I put it in my book because I, I, I thought it was so impactful to me, but that's why I did what every person that's ever inter interviewed for an executive role has been told is flip the script and get the person who's interviewing you to talk about them.

So, mm-hmm. And so I flip the script and I'm like, so, so what's your vision for you? Like we spend 20 minutes unpacking my vision. I feel like I'm sitting here, the emperor has no clothes, so now you tell me like, what's your vision for you? And he's like, oh, I'm so glad you asked. And he flipped the board over and he erased it and, and, and then went on for the next 90 minutes, and I'll give you the short version.

He wanted to own his own islands. And he wanted to turn that into his own country and he wanted to have his own currency and that he, his picture would be on all the currency and he wanted all, all these things. And I thought, that's super audacious. But if he gets even close to that and I'm his number two, I probably get some beach club property and things are gonna go really well for me.

So, and I think that's what great visionaries do. They, they, they are comfortable talking about what they want in such aspirational terms that everybody underneath them is totally fine with it. Because they say, if I'm close to that person, I get something too when they arrive and you, and you're, you're, you're there.

Like that's the, so yeah, it was, it was clear to me, but it's, it's armchair quarterbacking, man. That's all it really is. It's paid armchair quarterback and I'm from the outside and I come and go, yeah, you should run that play. Like, and, and you were like, where was he in the middle of the play, man, like that, it is way, it, it's way easier to do what I do than it is to be an entrepreneur like you do.

And tend to have to live in, be in the thing. It's funny, uh, and I, I, I think it's just different perspectives based on who you are, what role you're in. So before you got here today, Tanner and I were talking and I was kind of going over my five year role, and I was like, maybe I'm just arrogant, Tanner.

After I said it, he was like, yeah, you do come, you, it does sound a little arrogant for where you, where you want to be in five years, but for me it doesn't feel arrogant. It just feels like, I think I can do that. Like, I don't see a reason why I can't, I don't even wanna say I, I, I think I can, like, I don't see a reason why I can't.

And, but it's just, it's a little bit of education in, in the space that you're in. It's a little bit of arrogance. I mean, if, if we're being blunt, but embedding on yourself. So it's just, it's just interesting, like the different perspective, like you're talking about Tanner and his vision and all that stuff, and.

Someone else was watching this and they're probably like, he'll never do that. But he, he feels that he believes it, he sees it. And then the same thing, vice versa for, for me. So it just, but I've, I've also, and, and to be fair, I did say, I hope you proved me wrong, but I've, I've really thrived a lot more on the Dana White perspective of I need you to doubt me because I can't wait to prove you wrong.

Yeah. And, and I feel like being that for other people when they need me to be, I'm not gonna be the one to fluff his feathers. Like, you can do anything that it's not gonna work. I'm gonna tell 'em you're an idiot and it's not gonna work, and I want you to prove me wrong. So, so I think, so one of the cool things is I think that, I think 'cause the, this show has a faith component to it, right?

So I followed the show front of the show and I, I think in faith, one of the coolest thing is when, especially when somebody becomes a follower of Christ, right? So they, they, they're like, I, I believe in Christ. And, and that's like a level, right? But when they reach that different level, when they go, I know into my, the depths of my soul that Jesus is my savior and he walked on this earth and, and, and, and they're able to, to tell with depth that testimony.

I love it when business owners and founders have a testimony of who they're going to be and they move from. It's a, it's an, it's an idea to, it's a plan to, it's a belief, to its knowledge. And so one of my favorite leadership stories, I love the Jesse Itzler story, where he walked around every day with a million dollar check up on the wall.

Mm-hmm. And he said, we made a million dollars. They just ain't wrote the check yet. Like that. And, and, and he, he believed it as he was out there slinging CDs on the streets of New York for, for people. And, and, and you know, who would've known. One of his first clients would be one of the guys he sold a CD for would be 50 cent.

And that guy would rent a private jet from him and, and their careers would be forever tied. And they would grow together as he went from, Hey, yeah, I'd like to rent a jet and arrive in a jet and you rent private jets for part-time. Like, this is gonna be a great fit. Hey, do you mind if I tell people that you rented the jet?

'cause you're gonna go big. And so when you get to that point where not only do you know, but you know it for somebody else and you become their biggest fan, and you just know that when it works for them, they're gonna take care of you. That you're gonna get to be part of that island too. That's when it, that that's when it goes like, like wild.

That's true. So I think it is great to be devil's advocate for each other and to push somebody and create that doubt. 'cause I mean that's one of the things that amo, he talks about is like, that he was gonna, he was gonna prove everybody back home that said he should still be watching Ravens football instead of doing the thing wrong.

Right? Mm-hmm. And, uh, but I, so I think, I think that that fear and love are the two greatest motivators. There's nothing better than either one of the two those, and I think that sometimes you need both, right? Like your kids need to, your kids need to love your parents love God, and fear consequences. 'cause if they love consequences, then and, and we might have a bigger problem.

Mm-hmm. They're gonna need God and their parents a lot more. Well, and you mentioned Jesse Itzler. It's funny, I just bought the big ass calendar this morning and so I, I really, you know, Nicole and I have had a few sit down. Did you buy the big ass one or the, or the small ass one for people who have big ass goals, but not big ass faces.

Did you go big ass? No, we're going on the wall. Okay. Yeah. And so we're trying to get tools that can help us be more visual with our year. I have whiteboards all over the house. Goal says I don't use 'em the way I should be. So we're gonna replace those with things that we use more often. But doing, um, like goal setting, journaling, you know, that kind of stuff we're trying to get better about.

What, what tools and resources do you think are necessary for people to be successful and what are just a waste of time? Yeah, so I have a big ass calendar. So, um, and, and it's, it's, it's on the wall. And the, the kids look at it on a regular and they, uh, bless. Bless you. Thank you. So I definitely think, um, I think having a visual thing that every member of the family can see is super important.

So that if you are on the road running, running a load and you're not there, but on spring break you've got family trip to Orlando, then the littles are looking at it and they're not saying, daddy's not here. They're saying, daddy's getting Orlando. I think, I think that's super cool. 'cause then they become engaged.

And then the weird stuff happens. Like then your daughter who's in preschool ends up having a conversation with another preschool kid and she's like, yeah, my daddy's building a trucking company. And before you know it, you have somebody who comes and says. I'm selling trucks because your daughter got your referral because she's engaged in the goal.

And I've seen that happen, uh, happened last year, uh, in real estate where, and it was a a, a Disney trip and I'll, I'll protect the agent's name, but it was the, the agent was getting home late, doing, doing a lot of referral. And, and their, their young son who was in second grade got him a deal on a playground with another second grader.

He's like, your daddy sells houses. We're trying to buy a house and we need to find somebody to help us. And so these two, these two second graders negotiated the real estate deal. I hope, I hope he got a commission. You would hope. Right? So, so I think I, I think that would be one tool that I would say, I say yes, get visual, right?

Like it 'cause outta sight, outta mind. It needs to be up there. Everybody needs to be engaged. Everybody needs to know what they're working toward. And then I, I would say, uh, I'd say you need one of these. You need a phone. Um, I. And, and, and how you use that phone as a, as a tool. Not being the tool to the phone, I think is super critical.

Right? How do you, how do you use the thing to, and I would say the more frequently that this thing can hold you accountable to get the things you really want, do that. Uh, so, so is it, is it a tool that you answer the phone at five o'clock to your accountability partner? Is it a tool that you, that you send strategic texts to?

Is it, is it, or is it a place where you go doom scrolling? So like, how do you do that? And, uh, and again, like, you know, the, one of the biggest hacks is if you have to over swipe twice, you have too many apps. Hmm. So if you're like, my son and you're like, I'm like, what are you doing? And he, he's like, I play all of these games.

I'm like, oh man, how time? So, so I think, I think that the, and then I think having, um. So we've spent a lot of time talking about coaching. I'm super grateful for you guys giving me the, the space to do that. But I would say it's also just having somebody in your life that is, that is there at the end of the night to have business pillow talk with you.

That is a, that is a undervalued resource, is, you know, if, if you're single, find that person. And, and if somebody were ask me, what's the most important decision you ever made? I would go back to start this conversation. I pick the right spouse and I, I think that, so I think partnerships, whether they're, and whether they are the partner that you choose to go into business with and you shake hands and you put money in about, with coaching, accountability, partnerships, your, your spiritual partnerships, the people that you put in your life that you trust and is inspire you, you through physically and spiritually.

And then, and then, uh. A hundred percent just I'm missing one in there. But it's just the partnerships, it's just that it is just pick the partnerships. Very, those are the most valuable things. So I think the biggest resources are still human resources. They're, they're, as much as we're trying to get away from them and trying to replace accountability, the, the funny thing is the most recognized name and fitness on, on YouTube has spent three years building a fitness brand on YouTube to sell accountability.

And so his, his app is $500 a week and that's their discount right now. Mm-hmm. Wow. And you, and you get, and you get the, you get the workout program to go do this. Um, then, but they built the app to try to be more human. So at the end of your, at the end of your set, you put in what you did and based on the, the information that you give the app, you get the guy, the influencer telling you good job, or you can do better.

Mm-hmm. And it's all digital on a stand. It's real and it's stage. But, you know, uh, the, the brand F 45 has been trying to do that for a minute, right. To get you to move station to station with something that looks like a human. They're, they're trying to, and all they're trying to do is back to, it's, back to the very first question, they're just trying to scale.

'cause at some point I'm at hours. And that's part of why I love doing the, the group coaching sessions so much. I have almost a hundred coaching clients because of those group sessions. So there's almost a hundred people that have a chance to, to play a really small role in impacting their lives and them changing legacies and stuff.

So, but even with that. There are days where I don't get to do anything but be in the business. I don't get to build the business 'cause it's, it's full amount of time. So, but that should not be the problem of the consumer. The fact that a great coach or a great resource is tapped out, shouldn't dilute the product for the consumer.

If they're diluted, go get another coach. Go get another person. Right. Don't take some watered down version because you wanna be able to tell people that that. Coach so-and-so coaches me. I, that's the, i I I think that, I don't know if that's the exact answer you're looking for. I do think visual calendar is, is one of the non-human tools that I would, that, that I would say is really, really powerful.

I mean, it's, there's just something about, about it. I mean, Jerry Seinfeld became Jerry Seinfeld because of a calendar. Mm-hmm. If you've heard his story on it, I mean, he, he, he went on some ridiculous, I wanna say it was like, I think he said like over 45 years now where he hasn't broke the chain. He puts a regular calendar on a wall and he puts an S on it.

If he wrote jokes for an hour, and I mean, he's, I think he's the undisputed goat in his field, just if we just judge it based on income. Right. Right. Mm-hmm. If, if you have a building that is the size of a mall. That holds nothing but expensive cars. And when your daughter turns 16, you say, pick out anything you want.

That's not on floor one, two, or three from writing jokes, you're at a, you're at a different level, right? Like that's the, that's the, and Andy Fra would be jealous of his, of his car garage. So that's, I I think human resources, man. Human, human, human, human. And, and like, I think that I, we had this conversation off camera for before that, if you tell me that I could have an advanced AI platform, or I could have a high skilled va, I would choose the va, I would choose the human component.

I, I just think it's more dynamic. Um, because what AI doesn't do well is apologize. And in business there's going to be mistakes. I think what what great VAs do is they apologize really well. They are used to kind of getting kicked around and not being treated super well. So they're quick to say, I'm really sorry.

I must not have understood that. Can you require a five for me? And man, it is hard for somebody to be mad at somebody who's, sorry. That's why we teach our kids, right? First two things. We teach our kid, somebody gave you something, you say thank you, you want something again? You say, please, we teach 'em that transaction, right?

You did something wrong. You say you're sorry. We train those behaviors into 'em really, really early. But we haven't figured out how to get AI to train to, to say please, to say thank you and to say, I'm sorry. You need a human to do that, especially in your business. Yeah. I, I, I had a guy present last year, um, and he was a plumber and he had a room full of small business owners and operators mostly into real estate space.

Uh, and he turned lights off. He started taking us through the different types of soil and the different, how this pipe reacts to this soil and how you don't wanna do this one with a pressure washer and you wanna do this one with ball bearings. And 30 minutes later we turn the lights on. Half the people sleep.

I was about to say, everybody's asleep and, but the depth of his knowledge was wicked. It was at a, like a, he could totally justify why he was high ticket price. He's like, I bought all these tools. And, but the one thing everybody remembered that he said was when he didn't even talk about plumbing, he said, oftentimes if you go to a heart specialist, they will analogize the heart to a plumbing job.

And he said, so I'm the guy that when you've had a heart attack, I'm gonna get in there and get it so cleaned out that you don't have to come back in for a re Which guy do you want? Do you want the guy that you, that says, well you usually have to do this once every 10 years if you don't change your behavior?

Or do you want the guy that gets it done right the first. They all remembered that piece that had nothing to do with, with, with plumbing and, and drills and pressure washing and ball bearings and, and, and cracked and destroyed drains and all the other great stuff that he, that he shared with us. But he met 'em where they were at and, and he probably could have just ended, walked off right there and had a, a, a bunch of clients.

But he wanted to show 'em how smart he was. And that's what I love about VAs. They don't care to show you how smart they're, they just care to show you that, that they wanna bring a human component to a job that, that, that people think can be replaced by a robot. Yep. So before we, I, I dunno if Tan's got another question before we wrap it up, but I, I guess from a, I'll ask two questions.

I guess. One is just more generic to the podcast. What is freedom to you as a coach? Like what, how do you try to. Give people freedom or present them with opportunity for freedom. I guess that'll be the first question, but yeah, so I, I think, um, the, it, it goes back to the, the, the, probably the longest part of the conversation that we had about the, about the one thing, maybe not being one thing they aspire to do, but the one thing as they aspire to not do, I think if you can de debu somebody from their biggest nuisance, they're free or they're closer to freedom than they were when, when they started a relationship with you.

So, so, uh, I, I, and that's why I would say I'm fortunate enough to be surrounded by visionary people at Tanner like yourself. So how do I, like my thing is just how can I cut chains so you can get to the vision faster? I think that, uh, one of my favorite, one of my favorite fitness programs, specific episode, biggest Loser to this thing where they took a bunch of people up to.

A mountain and had 'em run a half marathon. But what they did, it was towards the end of this, the end of the 90 day journey is they had them at every mile marker, they had to stop, pick up a vest that had the weight on it, that they lost that week. And by the end you watched how they were struggling. So even the more fit, more clear, more athletic version of them couldn't carry the body that they had when they started.

So I think freedom is just taking those weight vest off. It's just removing the things that are holding you down. And I think that's what what I try to do. That's what I aspire to do. I probably fail at it every single day, but that's what I aspire to do, is to, is to take weight off of, of people to figure out how do we, how do we cut the chains?

Hmm. And then my final question is, if someone's on the fence, they're watching this, they're entrepreneur, maybe they're talking about getting into something. Where, where should they start thinking about, Hey, I need a coach? Is it at the very beginning when I have an idea? Is it further along? If they're on the fence about a coaching, what would you say to that person?

I would say that all of us benefit from having that resource in our life. Um, and I'm gonna talk about as the beneficiary, not coach. So I've been a beneficiary. I'm really, really great, really great coaches, um, really great mentors, all the above. And so I would say most of the things I learned, I acquired from a book and I mastered through a relationship with a coach.

So, so if I have something that I wanna learn more about, I'm, I'm probably the guy that's gonna go study, read the book. I read a lot of books every year, I don't know, maybe a hundred, somewhere in that neighborhood, a couple of weeks. My wife's two 50, she dominates in that space in our house and, and makes all the social posts about it and everything.

It's like down there one a day. Yeah. It, it really is. And, and, and she doesn't count the children's books either. Like that's what she gets asked all the time. How many of those are, are when you read Peter Rabbits to the kids, she doesn't, she doesn't count those. And she's really careful to log her whole list out on, uh, on good reads so that anybody that wants to challenge it.

'cause as soon as she puts something on the internet, somebody wants to challenge whether you did it for real or not. I don't know why, I don't know why we are in a hater mentality like that. So I would say for, for me it is, you can, you, you can benefit from the relationship at all stages. The, it comes down to resources and, and the resources that you have.

So. Hiring a coach. If you're a one man shop and the only way you're making money right now is through sweat equity, um, it might not be the best. You should be your resources. That's it. Uh, now hiring a consultant at that same space and say, I don't wanna be a one man shop. I wanna get leveraged. I wanna, I wanna do some things, which is just another word for a coach would be smarter.

So it's, it's not about when it's about what do you want out of 'em, they really determine, say the, 'cause. I have some clients that coach with me once a month for 30 minutes and it's what they need 'cause it's where they're at. And I have, I have some clients that I have a daily relationship with, seven days a week.

And, and I have some clients that I have a weekly, and so, and I have two clients that just have quarterly that just wanna do a quarterly check-in that were clients from way back when I was in the tax industry. They're like, Hey, I would just like to run some financial stuff by you and bounce this off to you once a quarter.

So I think it's a, it's a loaded question. It's a question that I appreciate because I, I get what you're doing and you're trying to put me in a position to, to, to pump my business. Um, I think what I tell people is, you know, you know when you don't know enough to, I mean, and, and I think I've never heard the articulated more beautifully than Tony Robbins does, and he's probably the highest paid coach in the world.

Right? It's a, uh, I mean, a fun, fun story I learned at an event that he went to that we, we paid his team and he would tell each team, three quarters of a million dollar for a three hour speech. That's a pretty good ticket, right? Like that's, that's a good day at the office, even if you have to put out team.

But what was funnier, and this is a level, this is my aspiration. You wanna ask me what my big vision is? I wanna reach this level. So if you've ever bought a cell phone, you know, there's that moment. Do I take the thing off or whatever. Tony has the restroom brought in for his event and he wants to see the plastic taken off.

Hmm. He does not want to use the public facility. Now you can say that's arrogant. I don't think that's arrogant. I think he's reached a level where he's like, no, these are the, the, this is the private jet experience for me. And, and I thought when I first heard it, I thought that was wild. But then I heard, uh, bed Rose Killian tell a story online on his show and everything so that, that he was at this event and they didn't have private facilities at all.

And he nearly didn't make it back to the stage 'cause he had to hustle down the hallway and use the restroom and be in line with everybody else. And now his head's all these other places and he gotta hustle back and then, and they're like, bedroom's, Killian, and he's on, on the stage and, and they're like, that was just the guy that was in the restroom with me.

And so I love that story because that shows you, you can very quickly get in a position where you could judge a presenter and be like, why does this guy think he needs that thing when it's actually for you? Mm-hmm. It is like, Hey, hey, he's just trying to be the best version of himself, so you get the best experience out of this.

So aspiration for, for me is to be like at the level where I consistently think about. My clients said everything that I, that I would say that is even a perk for me is somehow an even bigger win for, for the client. Like that they, that they get the most out of that outta that thing. I, I, I'm gonna answer that question 'cause I think more of what you're looking for is, yesterday was too late.

You should have already hired a coach and the, the adage of best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. Right. Second best time is now today. And there it, it's more of uncovering, we, we talked about this in many podcasts, is that. The known unknowns are easy. I can go read a book, I can go find stuff. It's uncovering the unknown unknowns that has added so much value.

And I'm, I'm glad you talked about your coaching experience because I see it as, as the, what was it, the monkeys in a barrel is, you know, you're lifting 'em up, but they're also being lifted up by someone who's also getting coached. And you talked about being twice removed from, from John Maxwell of your coach being in a room.

Or was it your coach or your coach's coach, whoever it was that, that's incredible. To be two levels removed from that level of wisdom, I think is unmatched and finding those unknown unknowns and for, you know, anyone who's a little bit more monetary, you know, focused. We look at real estate investments or you know, other types of investments as, can I get 10% of my money and if I invest 25,000 into this property, can I make $2,500 a year?

That's a good investment. When Nicole and I were deciding whether or not, because this actually we met through a cold call and I don't answer cold calls. I'm very anti, like, don't waste my time. And this, this kid, you know, he was like, Hey, just, you know, wanted to see if there's anything we can do to add value to your real estate agent.

I was like, I'm not doing real estate right now. I'm focusing on trucking. He's like, oh, well, you know, Mike actually has experience in other industries. He's done this and this and this and you know, he, he'll, he'll give you 30 minutes free just to, you know, see if you guys are a good fit. And what Nicole and I wanted this year was to align ourselves with people that have values.

That, that are, you know, aligned with ours. And immediately Mike talked about, you know, he cherished his wife. He is, uh, you know, a, a faith-filled person and business-minded. Those are the three things that were aligning of values the most. And so when we're looking at that investment, we said, how do we decide if we can do this?

Well, if we spend 25,000 on coaching, can we make that 25,000 back in order to do that? You know, it, it's what, what does that math wind up being a thousand or $500 a week? Can we increase our value by $500 a week by the advice? 'cause then we just made back. And anything on top of that is icing on the cake.

And I can tell you that we have far surpassed that much value. We have more than tripled our income, you know, past the, the cost of that and, and I'd say probably darn near 10 xd our income from the price that we pay for coaching. So I cannot talk highly enough about it, which I'm glad you took the time to meet with us.

I just think that everyone at any level should be getting outside counsel. And even in the, some of the parts where you act as a marriage coach, but in the marriage coach, it's, it's reminding us that you guys are married, but you're also business partners and you need to find a way to separate the two.

So when we're sitting there going, Mike, who's right? Is she right? Am I right? Go stop, remove the, remove yourselves from the problem and take this as partners. Yeah. Well, I, uh, I think that's your testimonial that you were know, you mentioned testimonial at some point in the conversation, but, uh, if someone's watching this, they want to get ahold of you.

You mentioned YouTube, social media, stuff like that. What's the. Best way to, uh, follow you. Yeah, I think the easiest way is my name, uh, Michael Owen speaks.com. That's my website. So, and it has all four service offerings we have out there. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn. Just look up Michael Owen, you'll find me on LinkedIn.

Uh, and, and YouTube. YouTube, TikTok, Instagram at Michael Owen speaks. Awesome. Well, and, and I know we don't have any time today to go through the seven principles, but that book is on Amazon. Right. And which you talking about, it reminded me that I never got mine from Amazon, so I gotta give them a call.

But we have gone over the principles. You gotta hit by, you gotta Oh yeah. Uh, I, I made sure I, I'll get in the car for you. I'll make sure you get copy before I leave. Are, are there any principles that you wanna leave as a little teaser to encourage someone to go buy the book? Yeah, so I would just say, so the book is The Seven Laws of Retail Leadership.

Um, I think there's seven fundamental laws that'll help you improve results. Regardless of the type of business that you're leading, can I believe all business is retail? It's all transactional, therefore it's all retail. Um, but law number one, law number one, I'll give that to you free. It is, uh, no surprises.

And, and I really, um, I could get into, I can get into a long story, but the, the, the short story is I was very physically abused as a kid. And, uh, and man, nothing worse than coming home to a house of horrors and not knowing what to expect. So, so I had to create a system in my head that there was no surprises.

I learned that every single day at four 30 that a certain thing was gonna happen. That was really uncomfortable in my life. But I also learned that the, that the villain in the story, um, would wear out after about 45 minutes. So I learned that pain is inevitable, suffering is optional, and that, and that you can choose to not suffer by living an no surprise of his lives.

You can, and I'm not saying out there to anybody who's a victim of any of that stuff, that you should just accept that sometimes that the kid, you still don't have the options. But what I am saying is, as a leader. You have an obligation, and I don't care if you lead a company that has three humans or 23 humans, or 2300 or 23,000, I don't care.

The people who who report up to you in any way, you are in service to them to provide a safe environment. An environment with where there's not safety. People do not feel like they can survive because they're spending too much of the time trying to figure out what the next surprise is. Not trying to get the one thing done.

If you really wanna catapult your results, remove surprise from your business, put structure in place, that meeting that you have every day, round eight, have it at exactly eight. That meeting that you have at a round eight, that has sometimes these people have the same people in it. That meeting that you have at around eight, that has some people in it some of the time and that you talk about some things, put a structure to it.

Right? At eight, we talk about the results. At 8 0 5, we talk about, we, we give a motivational moment at eight 10, we, we do this and at eight 15 we're done. Like create an environment where people know as close to exactly what to expect as possible, and you will thrive. Remove surprise is from your life. And we have over glamorized surprise is, and we, and we use the word spontaneity.

I, I, I think, I think, forgive my language, but I think it's a bastardized statement, I think for the workforce. If, if you're getting surprised at work, it ain't usually good. So it, it's, and, and I mean, in, in my, in my life, if somebody throws a surprise party for me, bless them, they thought of me, but I'm immediately thinking about this mess.

That's gonna be terrible cleanup. Like that's, so, it's, it's psychological safety is the most important thing that you can do for somebody who trusts you with a quarter of their life every day. Provide 'em a safe place to go. No surprises. That's law number one. And I've got seven laws in there. We unpack the laws, did we go through like what, what good behaviors for each of the laws look like?

And then we, then we go through how to keep the law moving and living for the, for the rest of your career. Well, Michael, I appreciate it. A link in the show notes. Yeah. We'll have to look it up. Uh, I really appreciate it. Appreciate you coming through and give some information and, uh, just maybe open it up.

Uh. Different eyes to people and different avenues, so I really appreciate it. Thank you. You guys are great dudes. I appreciate you having me. This was, this was the best two hours of my week and, and not because I got to spend like 90 minutes of it talking about myself, but just because you guys are really quality people and I appreciate being here.

Well, I appreciate you coming through. Thank you. Thank you.