0:00

Imagine grinding your

0:00

way to a seven figure business,

0:03

only to have it nearly kill you. That's exactly where today's

0:06

guest, Colby Wegter found himself.

0:11

He was burnt out, ended up stepping away

0:11

from his business and told him himself

0:16

that things would change, but nothing did.

0:21

And by the end of that same year, he was

0:21

right back where he was burned out again.

0:26

But this time with no choice but to

0:26

rethink everything in our conversation,

0:31

Colby shares what really drives

0:31

burnout, why most people don't change

0:36

until they have to, and the mindset

0:36

shift that finally set him free.

0:41

By the end of this episode,

0:41

you'll know how to recognize

0:44

burnout before it takes over. Set boundaries that actually

0:46

stick and make changes before

0:49

you're forced to make them. Hey guys, if you are new around here,

0:52

welcome to another episode of Coach

0:55

Smarter, where we help health and wellness

0:55

coaches coach with confidence, market with

1:01

clarity, and build a business that lasts.

1:04

I'm your host Stephen Box, and today

1:04

I'm sitting down with Colby to talk

1:08

about the real cost of burnout and

1:08

how to escape the cycle for good.

1:14

Colby, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for being here.

1:17

Yeah, I appreciate you having me on.

1:19

So the main reason

1:19

I really wanted to have you on is

1:22

you have this great story about

1:22

burning out, not once, but twice.

1:29

And really that experience taught

1:29

you not just how to build and

1:34

create a business, but to actually

1:34

build something that's sustainable.

1:39

So tell us a little bit about that

1:39

story how do you burn out twice, man?

1:43

Like how does that even happen?

1:46

Yeah, I mean in really

1:46

short terms, I would say the biggest

1:50

contributor is just saying yes to

1:50

everything which people tend to do.

1:55

And so for me, it was that combination

1:55

of saying yes to everything.

1:58

And we were a lean team. I was in, the marketing agency world

1:59

and one of the partners at the agency.

2:03

But I subsequently had the most skills

2:03

in terms of actual marketing skills,

2:08

client management skills, admin

2:08

operations and all that sort of stuff.

2:12

And so when your team is small, All

2:12

of those things need to get done.

2:15

And so I just raised my hand pretty

2:15

much every time, instead of being

2:18

like, Oh, I need to delegate. But I was also the youngest

2:20

partner by 20 years.

2:22

And so there was probably an

2:22

element of proving myself a bit.

2:25

to try and hey, I am a

2:25

very deserving partner.

2:29

I can be the leader of this business in the future. Although all those like egotistical,

2:31

items that you're like, I don't have

2:35

an ego, but then you look at the data

2:35

and you're like, absolutely I do.

2:37

and that sort of stuff. But, yeah, the first burnout was

2:39

definitely saying yes to so many things.

2:42

We had just hit a million, right. And we only had a team of four.

2:44

So it was two other partners,

2:44

me and then an employee.

2:48

and so I was like managing 40,

2:48

40 clients at the time and doing

2:51

all this admin and doing all this

2:51

marketing and all that sort of stuff.

2:54

and on the outside, it looked like

2:54

I was holding it together, right?

2:57

But, I burnt out so bad that I

2:57

had to, take a week off, right?

3:00

My wife looked me in the face and

3:00

she's you have to do something

3:03

because it was like angry every

3:03

day and, super, exhausted.

3:06

And yeah, took a week off. The kind of the shock climax of that

3:08

story is my heart stopped beating on

3:12

takeoff on the way to go to chill out.

3:15

Obviously, I didn't die. But yeah, by December of that

3:17

same year, because that was in

3:20

April, then I burnt out again. So I basically journaled a bunch

3:22

on that week off, saying all the

3:26

things I was going to change, but it's easier to say you're going to change than actually change.

3:29

And so I kept doing those things

3:29

and then, it was December 26, 2022,

3:34

where I burnt out the second time.

3:37

I think a lot of the

3:37

coaches who listen to the show probably

3:39

can relate to this a little bit

3:39

because you mentioned how you felt

3:44

like you needed to prove yourself. And obviously it's a little

3:46

different situation, right?

3:48

You already had a lot of

3:48

the skills in these areas.

3:51

You're saying yes to things because

3:51

you are like, Hey, I can do them.

3:55

And you're maybe trying to prove to the

3:55

older people that you're working with.

4:00

That just because you're younger

4:00

doesn't mean you don't belong.

4:03

For a lot of coaches, they're

4:03

probably by themselves.

4:07

So they're not trying to prove

4:07

themselves to another person in that way.

4:12

But they are trying to prove

4:12

themselves to their clients.

4:15

And unfortunately for a lot of coaches,

4:15

they don't have all those skills, right?

4:19

They don't even have the

4:19

skills that you already had.

4:22

But those things still need to get done. They can't afford to hire

4:24

somebody to do it maybe yet.

4:27

So they're now trying to figure out

4:27

how to do the marketing, how to do the

4:31

social media, how to do all that stuff. And they're trying to take on

4:33

clients and take care of those

4:36

clients all at the same time. So I can definitely see a lot of

4:38

parallels between those situations.

4:42

Yeah. And I think, if I were to give any

4:43

advice on that front, something,

4:46

somebody who's helped me, one thing that

4:46

helped me get out of burnout was like

4:49

getting mentors and that sort of stuff,

4:49

and I never expected to be a coach.

4:54

but it just became an

4:54

unignorable call, right?

4:56

So basically the people I coach

4:56

are the exact same person I was 2.

5:00

5 years ago, right? 2 years ago, essentially.

5:03

the only reason for that is

5:03

because, again, I, once I was

5:07

able to over, get over that

5:07

hump, I had, a really good setup.

5:10

I was able to get down to, 8

5:10

hours a week for the agency.

5:12

We doubled in revenue, like, all

5:12

the systems were doing their thing.

5:16

And I said goodbye to all

5:16

that to start over again,

5:18

because it's I have to do this. it's not up to me.

5:21

But in terms of what you said there,

5:21

there are a million things to do, right?

5:25

Entrepreneurship and coaching, especially

5:25

if you're just running your own thing

5:28

is like you could do a million things. So something, one of my mentors

5:30

really opened my eyes on it.

5:33

He's even younger than me. He's 10 years younger than me.

5:36

he said. I'm more concerned with focusing

5:37

on what is the right thing?

5:40

What is the most important thing and

5:40

then expecting i'm going to make a

5:44

mess and all the other stuff, right? But I can only clean up one mess at a

5:46

time And so for a lot of people they're so

5:50

focused on I need to do social and I need

5:50

to have the proper llc And I need to make

5:54

sure that I have a business bank account

5:54

So it doesn't flow through my personal and

5:57

all and you do need all those things But

5:57

you don't need them all on day one, right?

6:01

And so you should actually be

6:01

creating messes by saying how

6:05

can I help clients the best? How can I get results for people before

6:07

I care about any of that other stuff?

6:11

Because any moment you're

6:11

not helping someone in the

6:13

beginning is just it's vanity. it's wantrepreneurship than

6:15

actual entrepreneurship.

6:18

Reminds me of a piece

6:18

of advice that I got from one of

6:22

my mentors, which was don't make

6:22

your first hire until it hurts.

6:30

And you shouldn't hire anybody before you've mastered it yourself, right?

6:33

a really good one, especially when

6:33

you're starting out, you might

6:35

do cold outreach or DMing people.

6:38

Everybody hates that. I don't really know anybody

6:39

who likes to send cold outreach

6:42

messages, but you should master it. Like you should be able to get to

6:44

a point where you're like, okay, I

6:48

can even just, if it's as simple as

6:48

sending a five minute loom video on

6:51

exactly the system on how you do it. So someone just replicates it.

6:55

You need to have that level of

6:55

mastery, even if it's like the most

6:59

baseline before you hire somebody.

7:01

And in my space, agency owners

7:01

are, they're so maxed out.

7:04

They think I need to hire

7:04

to just ease the workload.

7:08

My opinion is you should never

7:08

hire to solve your problem.

7:11

You should always hire

7:11

with a future focus.

7:13

And so if you're like, I'm working

7:13

80 hours a week, I'm capped.

7:16

I need to hire somebody. hiring somebody is inherently

7:18

one of the most expensive things

7:21

you can do to solve that problem. And it might not work.

7:24

And that's also why I coach agency

7:24

owners because I come from that space.

7:27

Like I literally have hired people

7:27

thinking that they would solve my problem.

7:30

it actually added workload and then

7:30

I'd had to fire one or two of those

7:33

people cause it didn't work out. So you start back at zero.

7:36

So hiring is. Yeah, that's a whole other topic,

7:37

but it's, you should exhaust every

7:41

other option in my opinion before

7:41

you, you go the hiring route.

7:45

It's interesting. I think a lot of people don't realize, and

7:47

I only know this because I did come from

7:52

a management background before I decided

7:52

to go into business for myself, that.

7:59

Managing other people, which even if

7:59

you're hiring a completely independent

8:04

person, you are still technically managing

8:04

that person is a lot of times, especially

8:11

in the beginning, more time consuming

8:11

than actually doing the task yourself.

8:17

And so almost

8:17

always. Yeah. Yeah. So if

8:20

you don't know what you're

8:20

doing, and now you're trying to get this

8:24

person to do what you want them to do, but

8:24

you don't even know what it is yourself.

8:30

It's going to be a train wreck every time,

8:33

every step. And that's, yeah, it's like this, what I

8:34

would just call trickle down leadership.

8:38

And it's why my program, and I'm sure,

8:38

any coaching program, no matter what niche

8:43

you're in, I think this is a good place

8:43

to start, but my, the model I use is what

8:48

I just call the autonomy agency model. And that's basically what

8:50

I personally implemented.

8:52

And then I've had a handful of

8:52

clients and they implement it.

8:54

But the start of that is

8:54

what I call self scale.

8:58

If you're not good, you can't be good for others. If you tell everybody they should

9:01

have a proper work life balance, but

9:03

you're crushing the 80 hour weeks,

9:03

they're gonna pay more attention

9:08

to what you do than what you say. And you really need to, it's like elements

9:11

of people pleasing, it's elements of what

9:17

should I do and all that sort of stuff. It's like it's your business.

9:20

And we were talking about that

9:20

right before recording, right?

9:22

It's your business. You should run it the way you want.

9:25

And everything works. You just have to be willing to,

9:27

maybe fail a little bit or look

9:31

foolish or have other people not

9:31

understand you, it's your way, right?

9:35

And so there's nothing wrong, in fact,

9:35

it is paramount that you invest in what

9:40

you need to be able to grow, right?

9:43

Unless you're trying to do a full

9:43

court press and say, I need to

9:46

get to seven figures in 12 months

9:46

and I don't care if I burn out

9:50

because then I'm going to cash out. That's a different story.

9:52

But if you're looking for a career

9:52

or something that is sustainable

9:55

and impactful, the more selfish you

9:55

can be, so long as you're a good

10:00

person, the better off you will be

10:00

because everyone benefits from that.

10:04

Cause it trickles down.

10:07

What do you feel when

10:07

you were going through your burnout?

10:11

What do you feel is like the

10:11

biggest change that happened

10:14

between those two instances? Man, I know you, you took the week off

10:16

and then you just jumped back into things.

10:21

So what was it that actually did

10:21

change during that time for you?

10:27

You mean between the first one and the second one?

10:29

Were there any things

10:29

that you actually did change that

10:34

ended up being Something you're able

10:34

to go back to after the second burnout.

10:39

Yeah, the first burnout

10:39

to the second burnout, I would say that

10:43

was probably like the pregame or, the

10:43

prologue to it in terms of just then

10:49

I started asking a lot more questions. It was for seven years leading up

10:51

to the first burnout, it was just

10:56

the whole work harder to get more.

10:58

Which is categorically false. and so I did that, and that's what

11:01

contributed to the first burnout.

11:03

In between burnouts one and two,

11:03

I think what was really happening

11:06

there was I was just asking myself

11:06

a lot more questions, right?

11:09

Or I was at least looking at

11:09

the foundation and saying,

11:13

maybe this isn't that great. maybe there's some holes in this thing.

11:16

maybe we're leaking here. of course that didn't stop me from

11:18

burning out a second time, because

11:21

I did, but then, what really sparked

11:21

after the second burnout and why did

11:25

I make all these drastic changes? I think it was because the first

11:27

burnout was like the prologue to what

11:31

was actually a burnout, where it was

11:31

like, hey, this is as close to rock

11:35

bottom as I think I've ever been. And, so to me, Because it happened

11:38

a second time in the same year, I

11:44

almost adopted this F it mentality and

11:44

whereas everything I was journaling

11:49

about between one and two, I was

11:49

like, Oh, that's a really nice idea.

11:53

But I was like too afraid to pull the trigger. Whereas, one example was meetings.

11:57

I was just on too many meetings. And I told myself after the first

11:59

burnout, I was because I was averaging

12:02

like 20 hours a week just in meetings. And I was like, I need to, take no more

12:04

than like 10 hours a week in meetings

12:08

and in the subsequent like 20 weeks after

12:08

that first burnout to the second one,

12:13

I broke that rule like 15 times, right?

12:15

I was taking over 10 hours. Most of the time back to 20.

12:18

And so after the second burnout,

12:18

what I do, I emailed everybody.

12:23

It's like January 4 2023.

12:25

And I was like, I'm only taking meetings

12:25

on Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoons.

12:28

If you send me an invite, okay. For anything outside of

12:30

those times, I will say no,

12:35

which sounds incredibly like,

12:35

Whoa, what's up with this guy?

12:39

Everyone applauded. Like anyone who did respond

12:40

was like, good for you.

12:43

Then they followed the instruction. And in one email, I eliminated

12:46

like 18 meetings a week.

12:51

And I think I had to hit that rock bottom

12:51

to be like, F it, pull the trigger.

12:56

And then you pull the trigger and you

12:56

realize, wow, this wasn't nearly as

12:59

scary as I thought it was going to be. In fact, this is amazing.

13:02

I wish I would've done this five years ago. And that's basically why, Everything

13:05

I do, especially when coaching

13:08

clients, none of it is invented, in

13:08

my opinion, none of it is made up.

13:12

It's come from somewhere else. It's almost like the primary function

13:13

of a coach in almost any industry

13:17

is okay, you now have permission

13:17

to do that stuff you want to do.

13:21

I'm over here as an accountability buddy

13:21

and an advocate in your corner saying,

13:27

pull the trigger, watch what happens.

13:30

I didn't have that. When I did, when I made that move, but

13:31

then I started finding mentors later and

13:36

it was oh, okay, how far can I go this? how far up the ladder can I stretch

13:37

and try and reach that potential?

13:43

So really, if we were to

13:43

paraphrase that it goes back to actually

13:47

what you said earlier, which is you made a

13:47

mess, then you selected on that mess, and

13:56

then ultimately it took the second burnout

13:56

for you to finally do something about it.

14:01

But ultimately you actually made

14:01

changes based on those reflections.

14:05

Yeah, and clean it

14:05

up one one mess at a time, right?

14:07

So if that's the takeaway from this

14:07

episode, it would just be like You're

14:11

going to make messes all over and you

14:11

can't predict anything or can't predict

14:15

it all and you can't control it all. And so the first mess I cleaned

14:16

up was my personal time, right?

14:20

Whatever is closest to the

14:20

circle, my calendar, like my

14:23

time, what I say yes to, right? Got that under control.

14:27

Then it was, okay, I need to replicate

14:27

as much of me as possible, knowing that

14:32

I had only entry level employees who had

14:32

a, we had four employees by that time.

14:37

And they had a combined less

14:37

experience than I did total.

14:40

And so it was like, okay, so I need

14:40

to not only delegate to pretty green

14:45

people, but I need to make sure that

14:45

those systems are like reliable.

14:48

And so I, it was really like forcing

14:48

me to, I don't want to say dumb down,

14:53

but make incredibly straightforward.

14:55

What we needed to do to fulfill for

14:55

clients and all those sorts of things.

14:59

And so it would be like one page, Google

14:59

docs, or a simple two or three minute

15:03

loom video, all that sort of stuff

15:03

and combine all those things and then

15:07

stress test to see how they would do. So we use Slack.

15:10

We had a tickets channel that I created

15:10

just to be like, basically, instead

15:14

of, you'd get a support ticket to

15:14

a company for a product you buy, we

15:18

would do internal support tickets. Hey. You don't know this thing.

15:21

Tell me what you're struggling with

15:21

and I'll create a resource for you.

15:24

And then we'll organize it,

15:24

categorize it, all that stuff.

15:27

So I had to fix my personal time

15:27

mess to have time to create employee

15:33

systems, which was the next mess. Once the employees were fulfilling for our

15:35

current clients, then the next mess was

15:39

how do we build a pipeline that is like. Really predictable.

15:42

And how can we increase client

15:42

value and all that sort of stuff?

15:45

So it's always one mess at a time. there's would have been zero point in

15:47

trying to fix the client value mess.

15:50

If I was still working 80

15:50

hour weeks, burden out.

15:56

I see a lot of that in

15:56

the coaching aspect of what a lot of my

16:00

listeners probably do also, because that's

16:00

how you would take care of a client.

16:04

If somebody comes in and they

16:04

come to you and they're like,

16:07

Hey, I want to lose 80 pounds.

16:10

You're not just going to say,

16:10

Okay, here's some macros for you.

16:14

Good luck, right? you're gonna figure out like,

16:15

what are the roadblocks? Why is this person struggling to

16:17

lose weight in the first place?

16:20

And then you're going to go after

16:20

those things one at a time, and

16:23

you're going to build habits for them. Over time so that when they do lose

16:25

the 80 pounds, it's not just a,

16:30

I made a bunch of drastic changes

16:30

that I couldn't maintain, right?

16:34

it's learning along the way. And while they're doing it, there's

16:35

going to be times where they're going

16:38

to have slip ups, they're going to have

16:38

setbacks, they're going to have plateaus.

16:42

And then you got to make changes to it. And it sounds like a similar

16:44

process where you had an idea

16:49

based on what you had done. You said, okay.

16:52

Being, I got to teach this to other people. I got to simplify it.

16:55

Then once it was simplified, you put it

16:55

out there, you stress test it, then you

17:00

make changes to it based on what the

17:00

feedback was you got from those people and

17:05

how things are working in the real world.

17:08

Yeah, and that's

17:08

I love the way you put that.

17:11

I basically call that the off

17:11

ramp essentially where it's like,

17:14

Hey, just a picture of timeline,

17:14

on a piece of notebook paper.

17:17

If it's lose 80 on the far

17:17

right, then you're just working

17:21

backwards from there, right? So maybe it's okay.

17:23

Then you need to. Workout five times a week.

17:26

Okay, then what's before

17:26

working out five times a week?

17:29

You need to either find a gym or you

17:29

need to set space in your house And

17:32

then it needs to be I need to block time

17:32

for that five times It's gonna be 20

17:36

minutes 10 minutes 50 minutes, whatever

17:36

and you just keep working backwards.

17:40

Maybe diets a part of it from the diet

17:40

point You need to work backwards and

17:43

say, what meals am I going to have? From what meals are you going to have?

17:45

What budget do I need? What budget do I need? Where am I going to shop so

17:47

I can achieve said budget?

17:50

And you just work backwards until

17:50

you have the smallest possible step.

17:55

Accomplish it one step at a time.

17:57

It's the whole, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, right?

18:01

Losing 80 pounds. That's a fricking elephant, man. Like it's not easy to do.

18:04

And so don't even think

18:04

about the 80 pounds.

18:07

Think about what is the, it's minimum

18:07

viable product, minimum viable step.

18:12

To work towards 80 pounds and something

18:12

like losing weight, for instance, you're

18:17

not going to see that result for weeks,

18:17

man, like not even 10 pounds potentially.

18:21

So it is, it's one of the easiest

18:21

ways to quit is if you just have the

18:27

goal and you don't work backwards.

18:31

Absolutely. If you try to do everything, I always talk

18:32

about what I call the 10 80, 10 principle.

18:37

Which is the first 10 percent of

18:37

developing any new skill or learning

18:42

any new thing is the hardest 10%.

18:45

But all you're really trying to do is get

18:45

to a baseline ability with that first 10%.

18:50

And a lot of people where they

18:50

end up quitting is they're

18:53

trying to do everything. They're trying to learn all

18:54

the stuff, do all the stuff.

18:57

But there's an 80 percent growth period

18:57

in the middle that you have for that.

19:01

And the last 10 percent is mastery. And if you try to fit the first

19:04

90% Within the first 10 percent

19:08

is literally impossible to do.

19:11

Yeah, and what's

19:11

between those two tens longer

19:13

than you want it to take? Like, it's just, there's, I'm reading

19:14

this book, Essentialism, right now, and

19:20

it's like the actual, it's like with

19:20

Stoicism earlier in the year, right?

19:25

I'd heard it, but I hadn't

19:25

really read anything about it.

19:27

I'm like, oh, I've been saying

19:27

stuff like this for years.

19:29

Now I have an actual,

19:29

Bible to pull it from.

19:32

But Essentialism is the same thing, right? It's just If you get so focused on

19:34

trying to do everything, instead

19:38

of just focusing on that 10 percent

19:38

at that time, you're gonna fail.

19:45

it's just, you have to, there has

19:45

to be so much discipline involved.

19:51

and especially speaking to your

19:51

audience with coaching, right?

19:53

as an example, my coaching

19:53

business is two months old.

19:57

I'm already thinking, first of

19:57

all, I would have never done it.

20:00

Unless I was like, I can do this

20:00

for at least 10 years because

20:02

that's just a metric for me. I don't do anything anymore,

20:03

especially post burnout, unless I'm

20:06

like, I want to do this for 10 years. So I'm already thinking, what does it

20:08

look like 10 years from now, right?

20:12

But I'm working backwards. And so one of the things I want

20:13

is I want to get to 30 clients.

20:17

Before I change anything

20:17

about the business.

20:19

And the reason for that is it's

20:19

highly one on one and I truly

20:23

want to learn what people want by

20:23

experiencing it one on one, right?

20:27

So I'm not trying to get to max scale and

20:27

I'm not trying to have customer success

20:31

managers and all that sort of stuff. None of that's on my radar at all, right?

20:35

The only thing I'm working on is

20:35

30 clients, but I have questions

20:38

about that with like your 10 80, 10

20:38

principle is Okay, how many could

20:41

I manage simultaneously, right?

20:43

Because when it's on your own,

20:43

could I do 10 simultaneously?

20:48

Okay, what does that look like? Am I giving them an hour

20:49

meeting every single week?

20:52

Hell no, I don't want 10 hours

20:52

a week in meetings, right?

20:54

So I need to build my business

20:54

by design and not by default.

20:57

And that's one of the key elements

20:57

in, in essentialism that just.

21:01

I've been literally been

21:01

saying that phrase for a long

21:04

time and it's in the book. So somebody must've told me who read the

21:05

book and now it's like full circle moment,

21:10

but so many people are so focused on.

21:14

the scale or even appearing successful,

21:14

whether it's coaching or anything

21:18

else that they are building something

21:18

by default, they're not asking the

21:23

questions that say, build it by design. So to me, every single time I get a new

21:25

client, I'm going to be asking myself

21:30

the question, how does this feel? Is this sustainable?

21:32

Is this manageable? Cause maybe it's only

21:33

five people at a time.

21:37

In which case, if I have a monetary

21:37

goal, then maybe I need to charge

21:40

more after I've gone through

21:40

that first five as an example.

21:43

So it's like expectations are.

21:47

Are a disease, right? So you just need to take

21:48

it that one step at a time.

21:50

So expectations don't completely

21:50

derail what you're meant to do.

21:55

I know that was I'm a little bit sick right now. So in my head, I'm like, wow, that

21:56

sounded like all over the place,

21:58

but hopefully it makes sense.

22:00

Yeah, it makes good sense. At least to me anyways.

22:03

I think, if we're to maybe sum it

22:03

up for people, I have a favorite

22:07

phrase I always say, which is

22:07

don't shit all over yourself.

22:12

Yeah, that's a good one.

22:13

And the idea here is.

22:16

If you start having expectations

22:16

for yourself that are really only

22:22

relevant in your head, you're going

22:22

to find yourself doing a lot of

22:26

things that you don't need to do. And I know a lot of coaches get their

22:29

self in trouble by thinking, Oh, I

22:33

have to look super professional and

22:33

I have to do all these certain things

22:37

and I have to maintain this certain

22:37

image for my clients and give them

22:41

this absolutely flawless experience.

22:45

And the reality is, I don't care how

22:45

many questions you ask, I don't care

22:48

how much research you do, I don't

22:48

care how elaborate the plans that you

22:53

make are, you're never going to be

22:53

able to deliver that level without

23:00

breaking a whole bunch of eggs. Like you're going to make mistakes.

23:04

You're going to mess stuff up. You're going to learn from it.

23:07

You're, you might even upset a couple

23:07

of clients along the way, right?

23:10

you apologize, you offer them some

23:10

free sessions, you do whatever you need

23:13

to do to smooth it over and you keep

23:13

moving and you learn from those mistakes

23:18

because you're going to make them. You can't possibly out plan those things.

23:23

It's just, it's impossible to do.

23:26

Yeah. it's one of my favorite quotes

23:26

is like the best way to get 10

23:29

years of experience is 10 years. And so it's like you just need to, you

23:31

need to accept that going in, right?

23:35

Especially if you're going to have

23:35

your own business, just in any regard,

23:38

coaching being one of them, like

23:38

you need to be really upfront with

23:41

yourself and say, if I'm coaching and

23:41

there's an element of one on one, that

23:45

is a person to person business and

23:45

person to person is going to change.

23:50

The landscape is always moving and

23:50

you could have a client who is a

23:55

perfect fit, but then they show up

23:55

on a bad day and demand a refund and

23:59

it has nothing to do with you at all. And so you need to be like a

24:01

really good, almost stoic in a

24:06

way, like data analysts, right?

24:09

It's just say, okay, if you've had clients

24:09

for over a year, are you serving them

24:13

better this year than you were last year? Or if you're just starting out, if

24:15

a client asks for a refund, or you

24:19

feel like, something didn't go right,

24:19

did you at least respond in a way

24:23

you're proud of yourself with, right? When I'd have clients in the

24:24

marketing agency, I, At first

24:28

I had no clue what I was doing. And so stuff would go wrong.

24:30

And then I would just promise the world and fix it. But then I got smarter.

24:34

And so I would tell clients before they

24:34

even had their first, proper meeting

24:39

with me, I would say, Hey, I just want

24:39

you to know why you think you bought

24:43

this like grand system, really what

24:43

you bought our brains and fingers,

24:47

like you bought humans and talent. And so I can't guarantee

24:49

anything won't go wrong.

24:52

In fact, I promise something will,

24:52

what I can guarantee is how we respond.

24:57

And just by having that sort of statement.

25:00

On the way front end, I nixed any

25:00

improper expectations that would have

25:04

come from, they trusted me right away

25:04

because they could hear in my voice.

25:09

I'm not trying to mess with you. I'm trying to tell you, I'm

25:11

gonna work my tail off for

25:13

you, but something will break. Something will go wrong.

25:16

And I think that's just a

25:16

really valuable statement.

25:18

If you are coaching people, it's Hey,

25:18

I don't have all the answers, right?

25:23

We're here to solve a specific problem. I'll let you know if I can't help.

25:27

I think just by saying that,

25:27

You'll get more respect from them.

25:33

I love so much that

25:33

you brought this up because I feel

25:36

like so many coaches feel like

25:36

they can't say things like that.

25:41

Because it's going to make them look bad.

25:45

And I think one of the things I

25:45

learned from another mentor of mine

25:48

that just helped me so much with

25:48

this was she did a lot of public

25:53

speaking stuff for like corporate

25:53

speaking events, things like that.

25:57

And when I started doing more

25:57

speaking, she started mentoring me.

26:02

And one of the things that she told me was

26:02

when you get up in front of the room, the

26:07

first thing that you want to tell people. Some of you are going to be brand

26:09

new to all of this, and you're

26:15

going to just learn so much today. Some of you are going to know

26:17

some of this stuff, and you're

26:20

going to learn a few things. And some of you are going to feel

26:22

like you already know this stuff,

26:26

but that's just going to confirm to

26:26

you that you're on the right track.

26:32

It's just, everybody in

26:32

the room is now bought in.

26:34

no one is going to go, oh,

26:34

this is a waste of my time.

26:38

Yeah, there's this

26:38

perception right is it's outside

26:41

perception inside reality. We're all just human beings.

26:43

it's all over the place. It's like I don't have all the answers.

26:47

if you want to level yourself up and

26:47

reach out to somebody who's like way

26:51

further ahead, but you're too afraid

26:51

because they're way further ahead.

26:54

Like you've missed the crucial

26:54

elements that's just another human

26:57

being just trying their best. Like it's, it is the whole kind of take

27:00

the shot, ask the girl out, blah, blah,

27:03

blah, failure is a part of the game.

27:06

So if you can flex your failure muscle to

27:06

the point where it's just no, it's just,

27:10

another no on your way to a yes, then it's

27:10

okay, if you don't do well coaching for

27:16

your clients or they have, you didn't set

27:16

the proper expectation, which is like 90

27:19

percent of it anyway, and all that sort

27:19

of stuff that is just, it's a data point.

27:26

It's not. All encompassing, like

27:28

you're a terrible human.

27:30

It doesn't mean you're not

27:30

worth what you're trying to do.

27:32

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep coaching anymore. People make mistakes all the time.

27:36

Like I would tell my staff, I've never

27:36

yelled at an employee and I have a

27:41

high standard and that sort of stuff,

27:41

but I would always make it like a

27:43

teachable moment and that sort of stuff

27:43

and hopefully steer them to arrive.

27:47

At the answer instead of me just outright

27:47

telling them because while it sucks

27:52

in the short term It's worth it in the

27:52

long term because they'll have more

27:55

autonomy and agency to make future proper

27:55

decisions, but I would tell them Yeah,

28:02

it's I mean it's not easy but you got

28:02

to be patient in the management game

28:06

that's what I learned just by doing it. But but I would tell them almost daily

28:07

I'd be like, hey, just so you know, I

28:11

make way more mistakes than you guys every

28:11

single day The difference is you're not

28:16

as curious as I am to catch them, right?

28:18

The reason I see things is because

28:18

I am looking at all of these

28:22

things as how do we get better? So if you think I'm perfect over here,

28:25

I make more mistakes than you every

28:30

day, but it's because I'm going for it.

28:32

It's because I'm trying to get better. It's because a single day where

28:34

I'm not improving by that 1%.

28:38

I feel like not only am I

28:38

stagnant, I feel like I'm dying.

28:41

I feel like that's two steps back, right? And so if you have that mentality

28:43

with whatever business you run,

28:47

especially in coaching, it's like

28:47

getting better, doesn't feel good.

28:51

Be addicted to solutions and

28:51

improving, not how you feel.

28:57

I would really sum this up. Then I'm going to, I want

28:59

you to share with us. Actually, you know what, let's do this.

29:02

I'm going to have you actually

29:02

share with us who you help and

29:05

what you help them with and how

29:05

people can get in contact with you.

29:09

And I'm going to put like a nice little,

29:09

summary bow on this for prayer and

29:12

when listening so they can really just

29:12

walk away with the takeaways here.

29:17

Yeah, I can't

29:17

wait to hear your final word.

29:19

This excites me already. Okay. So who I help, I help six figure

29:20

marketing agency owners who are

29:24

trying to get to seven figures. And so that population, not in every case,

29:25

but most often is working well over 40

29:30

hours a week, or they've been doing it

29:30

for a while and they hit a revenue wall.

29:33

So that's just evidence that,

29:33

doing it yourself, isn't going to

29:36

get you to where you want to go. So with my experience, through

29:37

personal experience, getting to 2.

29:41

5 million with a staff of six and having

29:41

burnt out and gotten on the other side

29:44

of that and now coaching other six

29:44

figure agency owners, seven figures.

29:48

If you are a six figure marketing

29:48

agency owner trying to get

29:51

to seven, give me a shout. And then the website for

29:53

that would be autonomyagency.

29:56

com is my main offer.

29:59

And of course, if someone

29:59

knows, anyone who does fit that mold,

30:02

feel free to send them this episode

30:02

or, refer them over Colby's way.

30:06

And we'll also have the links

30:06

for all that in the show notes.

30:10

So here would be my takeaways, right? This is my quick summary.

30:13

And if you want to add something to

30:13

this feel free, but what I've taken from

30:17

the conversation is three main points.

30:20

Number one is don't be

30:20

afraid to make mistakes.

30:25

It isn't as a matter

30:25

of fact, look for them.

30:28

look for the opportunities to

30:28

improve, which means having to look

30:32

for those mistakes and view them

30:32

as like a scientist would, right?

30:37

They're just information. You don't have to like taking

30:38

you don't have to be like overly

30:42

dramatic about them, right? They're just they exist.

30:44

What can you learn from them? The second thing is.

30:48

Only try to solve one problem at a time.

30:51

So don't try to go fix everything at once.

30:55

Just focus on what is the one

30:55

thing I can control right now.

31:00

And then the third thing is ties into

31:00

that second one, which is figure out

31:05

what things are going to Or figure out

31:05

what things you have the most control

31:10

over, because like you had mentioned

31:10

when you went through your burnout,

31:13

you focused on what were the things

31:13

closest to you that you had the most

31:17

control over versus trying to change

31:17

things that you had minimal control.

31:21

And so really, those would be the

31:21

three takeaways that I would get to

31:25

somebody walking away from today.

31:27

Yeah, my only addition, say

31:27

number three A would be if you feel like

31:32

you can't do those things, then there is

31:32

someone who has been where you want to go.

31:36

And chances are, if you invest in

31:36

yourself with that person, you will

31:40

speed it up and feel a lot better

31:40

in a matter of days, weeks, right?

31:43

It's just, that was a huge contributor

31:43

to me getting on the other side of

31:46

burnout, is I just stopped being alone.

31:48

Yes, I was saying yes to

31:48

everything, and I started saying no.

31:51

Which successful people do. I also had another perspective

31:54

than just my own, right?

31:57

When you're sitting in the room

31:57

by yourself thinking you're doing

32:00

the right thing, but not really

32:00

sure it's completely understated.

32:03

How much of that mental warfare

32:03

just slows you down, right?

32:07

Just go out there and get a short feedback

32:07

loop from an authority figure, not

32:11

someone who's just, selling you a course. That's going to change your life unless

32:13

they've been where you want to go.

32:15

Don't pay them. But if they have. It's been my experience that

32:19

it's worth the investment.

32:22

Awesome. Great advice. Appreciate the, the added point there.

32:25

And I appreciate you joining us today, man.

32:28

Yeah, I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me on.

32:30

All right. That wraps up my conversation

32:30

with Colby today.

32:33

If today's conversation with Colby

32:33

got you thinking, make sure you

32:37

check out his links down in the show

32:37

notes and connect with him there.

32:41

That's where you're gonna

32:41

find everything you need.

32:45

All right, that wraps up my

32:45

conversation with Colby today.

32:49

If this episode got you thinking and

32:49

you want to connect with Kobe, you

32:53

can find all his links down in the

32:53

show notes and connect with him there.

32:58

And if you wanna make sure that you

32:58

never miss an episode of the Coach

33:02

Murder podcast, make sure you join

33:02

my weekly newsletter every week.

33:07

I'll send out the latest episode

33:07

plus insights to help you coach

33:11

smarter and grow your business. And that link is also

33:13

available in the show notes.

33:16

Before we go today, I want to give

33:16

you a couple of quick takeaways

33:21

that I got from today's episode.

33:23

Number one, burnout

33:23

doesn't happen overnight.

33:26

It's something that sneaks up

33:26

on you when you ignore the signs

33:30

and keep trying to push through. Number two, taking a break

33:32

won't fix burnout if you go

33:37

right back to the same habits. Real change takes,

33:39

rethinking how you work.

33:42

And guys, this is very similar to

33:42

what we teach our coaching clients

33:45

in the health and wellness space. That a quick diet fix isn't going to

33:47

solve anything if you just go right

33:53

back to eating the way you were before. And the same thing applies to burnout.

33:57

And number three, you don't have to

33:57

wait until burnout forces you to change.

34:02

The sooner you take control,

34:02

the easier it's gonna be to

34:04

build a sustainable business.

34:08

On our next episode of Coach Smarter,

34:08

we're gonna ask the simple question,

34:11

what happens when you do everything

34:11

right, but you still feel unfulfilled?

34:16

My guest, Elona Lopari had it all.

34:19

The corporate job, the promotions, the

34:19

success, but after climbing to the top,

34:23

she realized something was missing.

34:26

So she walked away and

34:26

built something of her own.

34:28

And in our conversation we

34:28

unpack what really holds coaches

34:31

back from making that leap. Why so many end up treating their

34:33

business like just another job.

34:38

And how to break free from

34:38

the habits, keeping you stuck.

34:41

Make sure you hit the follow

34:41

button so you don't miss it.

34:44

And that's it for today. This is Stephen Box reminding you that

34:45

coaching smarter creates a lasting

34:49

impact for you and those you serve.