From Chaos to Clarity: Lyman Montgomery on Focus-Driven Success

 In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, Pedro sits down with Dr. Lyman Montgomery, a best-selling author, international speaker, and leadership coach with over three decades of experience. Lyman shares his journey from being scattered and distracted to creating a focus-driven lifestyle, building successful coaching programs, and helping clients move from “I can’t” to “I will.” Discover how he uses six-month minimum coaching programs, commitment checks, and deep personal insight to guide emerging entrepreneurs—especially women—toward clarity, purpose, and measurable success. Plus, learn about his new Focus Driven Clarity app, his approach to scaling businesses, and why integrity, focus, and saying no are essential for lasting impact.



Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/engagemenow/
Website: https://www.focuseddrivencompliance.com/

Transcript

Lyman Montgomery 0:00

Coaching is not therapy. All my coaching programs are six months minimum. And I used to do hourly, but that didn't work, didn't work with my model because they were coming in and out and they weren't getting real success. So I said, you know what? It's really gonna take six months to be able for them to really see the result that they need. Not that it's gonna take six months to get a result, but to really believe it. And so the first week, we really spent a lot of time getting to understand them as a person. We don't even talk about business. We talk about, tell me about you. What's your life story? You know, what impacted you? Why did you go into this career? Why did you major in this? What were some of the issues or problems that prevented you when you were a child and they stood up and you stood up in the room and said, When I grow up, I want to be a what? Finish that. Well, what happened? Because you said you wanted to be this, what got in the way of that?

Davis Nguyen 0:54

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Wynne, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Pedro 1:25

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today's guest is Dr. Lyman Montgomery, a best-selling author, international speaker, and leadership coach with more than three decades of experience helping leaders align faith, purpose, and performance. As a certified life and business coach in Six Sigma Black Belt, he has trained thousands worldwide to lead with clarity, discipline, and lasting impact. He's also the founder of Sacred Greeks, a faith-based movement exploring the intersection of Christianity and black Greek letter organizations. Through his writing and teaching, he challenges assumptions, strengthens leadership, and helps people root their identity and purpose in something deeper than titles or achievement. Welcome to the show, Lyman. Wow, thank you. I'm not sure who you were introducing, but uh man, it sounds like a great guy. I love that, man. It was great to have you. I'm super pumped. And we were talking before the podcast recording, right? The pre-podcast. And I want to dive in into the origin story now, you know, rewind a bit. Because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now. So when was that for you?

Lyman Montgomery 2:42

Yeah, it was when my my youngest son, who's now 26, um, I was traveling literally all over the country speaking, missing birthdays, just running the rat race, trying to build the company. And it was his fourth or fifth birthday. And uh his mom, my ex-wife at the time, she had called me and said, Hey, we want to plan for his birthday. Can you help? And I'm like, sure, but I'm busy doing this. So this was probably like three weeks prior to his birthday. Fast forward to about three days, all right. I'm scheduled to fly back in uh to Dayton, Ohio, where we lived at the time. And I said, Okay, what do you need me to do? And she looked at and she was on the phone, and I was driving, and she's like, forget about it. You know, I asked you three weeks ago to help, and you didn't help. So, matter of fact, he doesn't even want you at his birthday because he was like, you know, dad's gonna be on his cell phone, he's not gonna be paying attention. And that really hit me like a ton of bricks that man, here it is. My son doesn't want me at his birthday party. And that got me on this journey of, man, what am I doing wrong? And I realized that I lacked focus. I was all over the place. So if someone called and said, hey, I need someone to talk about leadership, I'm on a flight. I need someone to talk about gymnastics. I know nothing about gymnastics, all right? But I'm on a flight, you know, and so I was I was highly distracted and I went on this literally year journey of trying to figure out how do I get focused? What does that really mean? You know, people would always say, Man, you need to get focused, but no one explained, well, how do you go about doing that? And after about a year or so of doing a lot of soul search and a lot of research, I hit the golden ticket and I realized that the reason most people are distracted is due to one of three reasons. The first reason is they don't have a clear path to success. So they're trying to throw, it's like the uh old Italian saying, take some spaghetti, throw it against the wall, and hope something sticks, right? So you're trying all these different things, many irons in the fire, right? Maybe this will work. The second thing I realize is you have to dedicate to one thing, get proof of concept before moving to something else. And so I would have a 60% project done, then I would start a new project. It would be 30%, then I start a new project, right? So I had all these unfinished projects, but none of them had any real successes. And then the third thing was that I found out was perhaps the most profound, especially for entrepreneurs, is what I call SOS, shiny object syndrome. People would call me and say, hey, I got this new idea. And they would pitch me, and guess what? The three projects, that 30%, 60%, 70%. Now I've launched a whole project that had nothing to do. So people were confused. They were like, I don't know what you really do. You know, I looked at one thing, you're doing this. Now, do I still struggle with that somewhat? A little bit, but it's a lot better in trying to bring that into synergies and saying, okay, you have to be able to be focused on one thing. And that's when I launched focus-driven lifestyle. And the reason that I called it focus-driven lifestyle is I believe focus drives everything in our life. And when I began to get super focused and get successes, I was able to teach others how to do that, and they got successes, and now they created a lifestyle that was focus-driven. Focus on three primary themes. Focus on you, focus on those whom you love, and focus on the greater community. But it has to begin with you. You remember that you're on the airplane. I don't know if they have it in Brazil, but in the United States, the saying comes on should we lose oxygen, the oxygen mask would drop. He said, put yours on first. So I was going around putting everybody else's oxygen mask on them, and I'm suffocating. And I said, wait a minute, we need to reverse engineer. So that's the origin story of how I got started. It started with my son not wanting me at his birthday party and going on this path, this journey to figure out how do I get focused so I can when I'm when I'm with my family, I'm focused on my family. When I'm at work, I'm focused at work, and being able to triage that rather than trying to multitask and do a lot of little things.

Pedro 7:13

Yeah, it gets back to whenever we say yes to something, what are we saying? Saying no to yes, what are we sacrificing, right? And then if you are aware of that sentence, it brings back you to intention. Like what I'm trying, what am I trying to achieve here? Am I working out of my ego or am I working out of to, I don't know, provide more opportunities for my kids, or should I even be more present or not? So I completely get what you're saying because I'm also a dad, right? With two kids. One is three and the other is seven. So hey, Pedro, pay attention, okay? Right, right. Hear lineman here a little bit, okay? A little bit more. Um, but I'm curious, you know, when did it shift from I'm helping people, right, in the coaching space to I'm building real business around this?

Lyman Montgomery 8:04

Yeah, right around about it. I would say right around about 16, 17 years ago, because I launched a business, but I'm still trying to figure things out. And I really hit massive success financially as well as uh personally as far as really understanding focus and how to live a focus-driven lifestyle. About 17 years ago, when people from all over start contacting me saying, Hey, I heard about this focus thing you're doing, man. Can you come talk to our group? Can you come to our association? Can you can you uh be a keynote speaker at our conference? And I'm like, how are you guys finding me? Man, you're the talk of the time. I was talking to John. John said he saw you at a conference, and that's what led to writing the book, Focus Driven Lifestyle, uh, which became an instant bestseller, got me on more stages and everything. And um, it was a whirlwind of just doing book tours. Um, and that's really when I've realized I got something that could help a lot of people. I reached out to a lot of thought leaders, and they all concluded the same thing, like Lyman. You know, a lot of books tell you what you need to do, but your book actually walks people through the process of how to not only get focused, remove distractions, but also stay focused so that they can live a focus-driven lifestyle.

Pedro 9:33

Okay. And after you got rolling, right? Who are the people that kept showing up? Because I want to understand it once you realize, okay, this is my tribe, you know, because you you said it yourself, uh, fitness, right? Yeah. And you were you're uh trying to embrace the entire world, you know, trying to solve everyone's problem. But was it a time that you felt like, hey, I can I can be best, I can serve best, this type of people?

Lyman Montgomery 9:58

No, no. What I had to do was niche down. And what I realized is the sweet spot were emerging entrepreneurs because they was right in that place where they're starting to make money. Let's say they're hit six figures, right? And they're now in a position where they got a little extra money, and they're thinking about, well, should I invest in this? Should I do this? Rather than really perfecting what they have. And so I would say emerging entrepreneurs is the sweet spot. That's majority, also females that were looking to launch a business, that maybe they were in a career, they got uh fed up for lack of opportunity, um, and they decided to invest in themselves. So 70-70% of my clientele are women that are entrepreneurs that are moms that say, you know, I have all this knowledge, all this expertise, but I don't know how to put it into a business. And that's what led to, we talked about earlier in the pre-proadcast, is led to moving from I can't to I will framework. And that's what really helped a lot of women in particular to launch their businesses and be successful through my coaching and through my mentoring.

Pedro 11:12

Okay, awesome. Interesting that 70% is out of women. I think that's so interesting. Yeah, cool. And cool. Okay. Now that's the coaching side, right? Yeah, let's talk about the park, nobody's skates. Marketing, right? So so you already kind of browse through it, but how do people usually find you?

Lyman Montgomery 11:32

So people normally find me in one or three ways. Believe it or not, referrals is still my number one way people find me. Either they heard me speak, like here on a podcast that was promoted, they reach out. Um, I'm at a conference, a networking event. I do have a social media presence. They might see an Instagram post or something, something on LinkedIn that I posted. They might read an article that I uh wrote for Medium, which is my preferred platform as far as article writing. Some of them just Google search me, but I would say primarily it's still word of mouth where someone says, Hey, you know anyone that is a good coach, whether it comes to launching a business, building a business, or I'm thinking about succession and closing down my business, do something else, going back to the example of primarily women that's in the workforce. They have built up a nice nest egg. They're looking for the second phase of their life, they're getting ready to retire, or they're getting ready to pivot and do something different, and they just need someone to help them move from where they're their current state to their future state, and I become sort of that vehicle, that middle passage, that bridge to help them get there.

Pedro 12:53

Toll man. Okay. I like that.

Lyman Montgomery 12:56

Yes.

Pedro 12:56

All right. Now let's talk business for a second, tall man. So people find you, right? Yeah. Through referrals, they Google you, you name it, through a speaking gag. So they resonate with your work, and eventually they want to know what working with you actually looks like. So everyone builds their coaching business a bit differently. So when someone actually becomes a client lineman, what does that experience look like right now?

Lyman Montgomery 13:19

What that looks like is they're terrified. The first conversation, they're literally terrified because they've paid, they've paid, and they're like, you know what, I don't know if this really gonna work. And so we spend probably, and and we have a six month, all my coaching programs are six months minimum. And I used to do hourly, but that didn't work, didn't work with my model, okay? Because they were coming in and out and they weren't getting real success. So I said, you know what? It's really gonna take six months to be able for them to really see the results that they need. Not that it's gonna take six months to get a result, but to really believe it. And so the first week, we really spent a lot of time getting to understand them as a person. We don't even talk about business. We talk about, tell me about you. What's your life story? You know, what impacted you? Why did you go into this career? Why did you major in this? What were some of the issues or problems that prevented you? When you were a child and they stood up and you stood up in the room and said, When I grow up, I want to be a what? Finish that. Well, what happened? Because you said you wanted to be this, what got in the way of that? So we spent a lot of time that first week really deconstructing who they are. The second part, we begin to talk about vision. Okay, what do you want your life to look like in the future? Now we're talking about right now, because I have to get them out of inaction and into thinking about wow, maybe it's possible. Maybe, you know, I can really do this because it's very difficult to take someone who's already nervous, frustrated, maybe stressed out. Maybe there's some fear they're dealing with, maybe there's some hidden trauma that they have not unpacked. Okay. And I'll be honest with you, there are some clients that I will strongly encourage and say, you know, coaching is not what you need right now. You really need therapy and coaching because I'm a coach, I'm not a therapist, okay? And you have a lot of life trauma that's blocking you from even being in a position to move forward because you're stuck, okay? I can help you get unstuck, but I'm not a therapist to deal with the psychological or traumatic impact of your childhood. And I think that's the difference between me and a lot of coaches is that I will refund. Matter of fact, I had a client, it just wasn't a good fit. I would tell her or suggest that she would do something, and she would do the complete opposite. After the third time, I said, you know what? You're not in a position that you're ready to be coached because you're not coachable. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to refund you 100% and strongly suggest that you get therapy. And I refunded her money because it just wasn't a good fit, because she was not coachable. And so that's sort of what that experience looked like is being brutally honest and helping them to see what it's going to take and let them make that decision. Are you willing to go forward? Are you willing to add up the cost? Because they're not willing to be coachable. It's going to be frustration. And trust me, I've had clients that I wish I had never accepted them because they just weren't in a position to be coachable. Not no fault of their own. They just had a lot of trauma that was preventing them from moving forward. And that's where I make that distinction between coaching is not therapy.

Pedro 16:47

Wow, that's powerful. You know, easier said than done, right? When bills are are gay are getting in the mailbox and you're like, yeah, I kind of need it. But at the same time, I love the fact that you have integrity, right? Yeah. You know you cannot help someone, you just don't, and it makes perfect sense, at least in your own practice, but you can help them somehow because you're serving them by telling them, hey, this is not the right fit, but I have someone to point you to or something to look for. So yeah.

Lyman Montgomery 17:15

The other the other thing, similar to what you, I started doing an application process to really and and if I take on a client, they get like a survey, and then if they become a client, they get a hundred question survey that they must complete. If and that, and that tells me a lot about them. If they, if it, if they if they don't complete the survey, that lets me know, okay, they're not ready. Because if they're really ready, and some of the questions require them to do some deep inner thinking and feeling. Like one of the questions on the survey is share with me a troublesome uh situation. How did it impact you? What did you do? And how does it still impact you today? Well, you just can't answer A, B, and C. You really have to go deep and think about that and say, wow, well, how does that impact me even today? And it takes time to do that. And I give them a week to complete it, and we then we review it. And that's again one of those processes that I found out through a mentor of mine. He said, Lyman, you can try to save everybody and reach no one. Or you can be very strategic and know exactly who your audience is, your tribe is, and they will forever be loyal and become ambassadors for you. And I found that to be so true.

Pedro 18:36

Yeah, sometimes it's a commitment check. It's like on the other when you're on the other side of hiring, for example, that I've been there and done that, sometimes you add some challenges just to filter commitment. It's like send me a video of X, Y, and Z, and they're like, Oh, I'm not gonna send it because I don't want to put the work in. There you go. So it's a commitment check, and I 100% get it. It's not about a technical or oh, the answer was right or wrong. It's about are you actually doing this? You know, and the commitment check based on my my early days, right? I'm 39, but I had my fun a while. I was like, I will not accept someone like a date that is like making me wait an hour, you know, an hour, 30 minutes, because that person simply doesn't value my time. And that's something like commitment also. And Lyman, your work seems pretty hands-on, man. We're talking about it. Coaching practice, speak, books, right? You're traveling all around, multiple business. So, how do you think about capacity? So don't stretch yourself too thin.

Lyman Montgomery 19:40

Great team. A good friend of mine by the name of Mark Anthony Garrett gave me the best business advice early on. He said, Lyman, focus on what you do best, outsource the rest. And I have an incredible virtual team that I don't have to do everything now with AI. Oh my God. I have I have a workforce out there that work 24-7, man. They don't argue, they don't complain. And so we just got real smart as far as how we are able to get things done, become highly, highly efficient to be able to scale in certain areas, but also be able to pivot when we need to, when we see that the market is shifting or changing. And that goes back to again that uh that framework that developed over many, many years to help people move from I can't inaction, focus on calls, lacking authority, not seeing the need, having trust issues to will. Because that's very powerful when you are able to see a person say, you know what? When I first signed up for your coaching program, I noticed that I said a lot of I can't. Well, I can't do that. I don't think I could do that. And now, man, being with you for a couple of days, a couple of weeks, I can do this. I will do this. And that's what's that's the transformation going back to that I will, being intentional, seeing their worthiness, living in their own integrity, up, forever learning, being coachable, and then being able to leverage their skills, their opportunities, their education to go on to do the things that are important to them, that are their focus dials that I call.

Pedro 21:19

You know, I want to tap into your experience a little bit here, real quick, because I had some guests and other coaches telling me uh the same principle, right? Uh you outsource so you can focus on your zone of genius. But some of them told me the the struggles they went through. It's like, yes, do that, but you need to have at least an idea for what that person is gonna do. It's not like you're clueless about it or you might not even know how to trek it. That's what I'm trying to say. Right. Um, have you ever experienced or saw something like that? You're like, oh, uh, I saw X, Y, and Z try to outsource this, but they were like never done that and they were kind of lost. You know what I mean?

Lyman Montgomery 21:58

Yeah. And so So it goes back to my background is in human resources. And so understanding how to interview people, understanding how to source, recruit, things of that nature. And so what works for me and has worked for many, many of my coaching clients is remember I talked earlier about having them to create a vision of what they want their life to look like, right? Part of creating that vision is alignment, right? And so whenever you meet someone, whenever you take on a client, whenever you're considering a new career path, there's three things that I encourage my clients to always consider. Number one, does this new adventure align with who you are as a person? Number one, are you getting good vibes, right? Does the energy match? Okay. Does the conversation match? For example, if you held up a glass, are you the person that sees the glass half full, but yet you're trying to work with someone that says, I don't know, the glass is empty? Are you positive, but yet the people that you are attracting are naysayers? Oh, that won't work. I tried that in 19, you know, 1975 and it didn't work. Well, man, that's 40 years ago. What have you done lately? And so alignment becomes key. The second is are you able to communicate with clarity what it is that you want? Most people don't know what they want. They know what they need, but they don't really know what they want. They will say, I want to be happy. Well, what does happiness look like to you? Well, what they're really saying, I don't want to feel pain, I don't want to feel loneliness, but they really haven't deep dived and dissected what does happiness mean to you? Because they've had so many people tell them what happiness looked like. So you had one person that says, Well, if you made $100,000, you'll be happy. Guess what? They checked the box, they made $150,000. They were happy for about six months, and now guess what? It dropped. Well, you need to get motivated. If you were motivated and you did self-talk and you had all these affirmations, you would be happy. So every day they're telling themselves, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy, and they're not happy. Because happiness is not external, it's internal. Okay. What makes me happy might be different than what makes you happy or someone else happy. Okay. For example, my wife and I, happiness to me, lineman, is being able to create things, take an idea from my mind, put it on paper, build it, and then be able to show the world, wow, I was able to take a thought and now give birth to it, that it now feeds the world, i.e., books, coaching programs, et cetera, et cetera. Speaking at conferences, right? My wife is an auditor. What makes her happy is seeing people get real results. Okay. She's not a person that wants to be in front of the camera on stage. She's a behind-the-scenes person, all right? But she's a systems person. So she wants to make sure that every system in a person's life is operating at full capacity. That's what makes her happy. That gives her joy and fulfillment. Also, community service gives her fulfillment. And so that's going to be different for each and every person. And the last thing that I would say, outside of alignment, making sure that energy, energies match, right? The third and perhaps the most profound, and it's difficult to do for a lot of people, is the power to say no. Man, I think you said earlier, if you're saying yes to everything, then what are you saying no to? And it's difficult to say no. Someone comes to you, oh man, they got a great idea. Man, yes, you can make a lot of money, but it doesn't align with your values. It doesn't align with who you are. And you have to be willing and strong enough to live in your integrity, see the worth of yourself, and say, you know what, I'm sure that's a great idea, but it doesn't match where I'm at, what I'm doing, or who I am. It's just like if someone came to me saying, Hey, Lyman, I got this great idea, we could sell alcohol, I don't drink, or cigarettes, tobacco product. I'm sorry, I don't drink, I don't smoke. So I would not be able to live in my integrity because I wouldn't be able to speak about it because I'm not part of that community. So I would have to be that would be a hard no for me. And that's hard for a lot of people to do is to say no.

Pedro 26:41

Yeah. Um, sometimes in social circles, saying no, it's like putting outside of the box and it feels weird. I'm gonna change my friends, you know, because I created these friends based on this sort of habit I have. So yeah, 100%. Now, Lyman, I'm curious about where you're taking all this, right? Looking ahead. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring, or is there a next step you're excited about?

Lyman Montgomery 27:05

Yeah, and so I mean, I'm really excited about this. And so we are in the process. We're about 99% done. We got a new coaching app that uh we're launching. Uh, now if I got to send you the prototype. Matter of fact, you know what? Let's do this. Because I want some beta testers out there. If you go to focus driven F-O-C-U-S-E-D-D-R-I-V-E-N dot com, focusdriven.com, you can actually preview the Focus Driven Clarity app and uh play around with it. Um it's something that, again, it's in beta right now. We haven't launched it on the uh app store. We probably do that in about another two, three weeks. But uh it's gonna be a lot of, it's a lot of fun. And so, and this app, I'm excited about it because it has over uh 15 to 20 different coaching modalities that coaches can use, and it's it's everything that you need to be a successful coach. The forms, the application process, there's demos in there, there's scenarios in there. And so that's that's what's next, man, is really saying, Lyman, how do you duplicate what you're doing in a smart way? And for me, having an app that people can download, especially this is for coaches, all right, to help coaches and even consultants have a framework that uh has worked for me and to be successful with it. So focusdriven.com, you can access the focus driven clarity app.

Pedro 28:34

Okay, I'm just writing it down. I'm gonna check that. I'm gonna be a beta tester. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Awesome, because I'm also a coach, so awesome. And of course, whenever we're aiming towards the next chapter, there's always something we're refining in the present, right? So, what are you currently trying to improve or tighten up in your business right now?

Lyman Montgomery 28:52

Right now, I would have to say um segmentation. Um, because the coaching 21 years, like I said, 50,000 uh clients that I have personally coached or touched over those 21 years. When people hear that, like you've coached 50,000 people, yeah, but it's not all at once. This is over, you know, this is over a 21 year period. All right. And that's how I was able to, you know, live the life that my wife and I live, able to travel all over the world, is because our retention rate is right around uh 85%. That they just they stay with us. We have a number of people that they graduate, and a year or two later they come back and say, hey, you know what? I need six more months with you. No problem. They get a nice discount and things of that nature. And so that that's really segmentation because we also have the Sacred Greeks, which is a new launch for the faith-based community. I'm not sure in Brazil they have fraternities and sororities at colleges and universities. It's more maybe more of an American thing, a fraternities and more of a U.S. thing. Yeah, of a U.S. thing. But there's this um phenomenon going on where people that's in the faith-based community, you know, they question if Christians should be in fraternities and sororities. And um I decide, I said, you know what, the faith-based community's been kind of silent on this matter. I said, let me, let me, let me, and I'm a member of a fraternity, Five Beta Signal Fraternity Incorporated. And I said, let me share my experience of being in a fraternity, still active in a fraternity, and also being uh a religious person, um, and and kind of share and give some guidance to those that might be struggling, the sacred Greeks, and create this nice movement that's getting a wrote a book called uh Sacred, Not Sinful, that kind of challenges some of the myths out there about faith and fraternity. And so that's that's where that's kind of like my charitable giving, right? And um it's been it's been great. And then also we have the this is for the healthcare sector that's doing bonkers because a lot of people were struggling with compliance issues, right? Then government, I'm not sure in Brazil how the government, man, if you're in the healthcare sector, there's a lot of regulations. Red tape, it's all over, man. Red tape all over, and there were great providers that were providing great services that were losing their license. And uh in the previous life, I ran a healthcare organization for a number of years. And so again, this is what normally happens is I see a problem or someone bring a problem to me and say, hey, Lion, what do you think about this? And if I have expertise in that and there's an alignment, I say, you know what? I think I can attack, I think I have an opinion because I was very good at that. Let me take my HR background, let me take my Six Sigma, which is all about systems, productivity, and efficiency, and apply it to those arenas. And so I only deal in three arenas. I deal in healthcare because my educational background is in healthcare administration. I deal with coaching because my son didn't want me to go to his birthday party because I was so distracted with chasing money, building a life, building a business, and really wasn't focused on the things that I should be focused in on. And that's what led to the coaching business, working with emerging entrepreneurs that at least had a hundred thousand or more. Um, and the reason that is important is that variable number one isn't never become a conversation about price anymore. You know, once they know they have a steady income, as opposed to, man, I don't know how I'm gonna pay my light bill. Okay, that's a different conversation because we're talking about growth and getting client client acquisition. We're talking about building systems into it. And if your focus is I got rent due and I need $200, I need $1,000 by next week. Well, that changes the whole tenor of the conversation. And I have systems in place to help them get there, but it's not gonna happen in two weeks. Okay. Because they haven't built a base yet, you know, and so I tell people the difference between I build, I like I build luxury hotels, not container homes. You know, you can just take a container, chop it up, and drop it anywhere. That's not what I do, okay? There are people that do that, nothing wrong with that, right? But if you're going to build a luxury hotel, you got to go deep. And what I found as far as being able to sustain sustainability is the deeper you're able to go, the wider you can become. Most people go broad and straight up, but they don't have any depth. And so when the winds of life come, they tip over, they fall over. Sort of like the, I don't know, in Brazil, we had this thing in the US called the three little pigs, right? One built a house of straw, the next one of sticks, the other one of bricks, right? So when wolf of the winds of life come and blow against you, right? If it's built out of straw, it looks nice, right? It's malleable, but it will not sustain. Sticks a little better, right? But depending on the ferocity of the winds, it won't last. But if you have a deep foundation built of concrete, built of steel, that's also able to, like the willow tree, able to be flexible. In Chinese, a martial arts, they have a statement called firm yet flexible. Okay? Bruce Lee called it be like water. Water takes the shape of whatever the container is in, right? Water can save you, but also if you put pressure on that water, it can cut through stone. And so you have to, yes, be firm, but also be flexible. And that's what I hope the next level in my culture is to help people to understand that to be able to segment those three different visions that I have. All three of them are doing well in and of themselves. But also on a personal note, I'm 58 years old, right? And now I start thinking about legacy, right? Will my sons want to take over? Maybe my youngest one, he's entrepreneurial. My older son, he's like, nah, I don't want to do all that stuff, right? So, you know, you build this stuff up and you start thinking about wow, the next generation, who's gonna take over when I'm no longer here, right? What would that legacy? So that's what I'm thinking about now, is legacy building. If that answers your question, I know that's a very long answer to a very direct question.

Pedro 35:33

No, I love that, man. I really appreciate that. And if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work, where can people find you and connect with you, Lyman?

Lyman Montgomery 35:42

Real easy. If you go to coach Lyman.com, Coach Lyman, it is a portal that will is real simple. It's gonna have three tabs there. Either you're interested in coaching, you're interested in my healthcare services, or in sacred Greeks. And so once you tap on one, it takes you directly to where you need to go. Make it real simple. So that's my portal with the three doors is coachlin.com.

Pedro 36:06

Real simple. You know, there were a few things you share today that really stuck with me. I would say being so vulnerable about the origin story about missing birthdays and that your boy didn't want you at his own party, your birthday. I mean, that's so powerful because at the end of the day, coaches they need to be more vulnerable because they ask that from their clients. Yeah, it's only fair you do the same, you know. And doing that on the podcast, I think it's very impactful, to be honest. And I would say also overall, the honesty and your hardships, you know, and how you were missing appointments, how you were kind of scattered, you know. And I would highlight also the fact that you mentioned that example that you're not a therapist to understand your own limitations, right? To to understand where you can serve people the best and how you can do that, and refunding a hundred percent of that. I mean, it tells about integrity at the end of the day. I also would pinpoint the fact that you created that 100 questions form, yeah, you know, so you can uh come kind of a commitment check, which I think it's cool. I would say also, I love the fact that you asked, like, what happiness means to you, right? What does that look like? And that reminds me of a Jim Carrey quote. It's like he said something like I'm not gonna rephrase it perfectly, but it's like I wish everyone would experience this, you know, success, being rich, so they would know this is not the answer, you know. And I like that quote. And also the fact that you mentioned the random, right? And connecting that with the idea of having someone who's starving, and you're like, hey, come here, let's take you to a five-star Michelin restaurant, you know, that's it's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't align, it doesn't connect properly for the experience on the both sides. So sometimes we need to build that foundation first.

Lyman Montgomery 38:00

You have to build a foundation. It's so uh that just explains me that Jim Carrey quote, you know, quick story. You know, Jim Carrey said that he had wrote himself a check, I think, for a million dollars, right? And had it in his pocket as a reminder. But the funny thing, to your point, when he got to a million dollars, still didn't make him happy. Yeah, that is so true.

Pedro 38:24

You know, I appreciate what you do. I appreciate you being here, Sharon, so openly today. It was great having you on.

Lyman Montgomery 38:30

Likewise, thank you. Thank you, appreciate it. Man, a lot of fun. And uh enjoy, enjoy Brazil, man. And uh, if you ever make it over the pond to the United States, man, go see some real snow. Okay, appreciate you, man. Appreciate you. No problem. Thank you. You have a great day.

Davis Nguyen 38:45

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you, visit join purplecircle.com