EntreLeadership - Why Coaching Will Transform Your Business with Jerry Colonna

Episode Date: May 31, 2021

All great champions have one thing in common—every single one has a coach. In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we’ll sit down with Jerry Colonna, Executive Coach and author of Reboot. He talks about how business owners can harness the power of a coach to not only grow their companies—but also find fulfillment in their relationships and improve their own well-being. Then in our second segment, George Kamel sits down with EntreLeadership’s Director of Coaching, John Felkins, to demystify the process of coaching, what good coaching looks like, and how it can help business owners through their everyday challenges.   Take The EntreLeadership Podcast Audience Survey   The EntreLeadership Podcast Reboot.io website Reboot by Jerry Colonna I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real The Reboot Podcast Ramsey Solutions website Learn more about EntreLeadership Elite Coaching. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY  |  Gravy  |  Hite Digital   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844.944.1070 and leave a message, or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You guys have heard the phrase, it's lonely at the top, so you better know why you're there. And implicit in that phrase is, if you're going to be a business owner, hey, sometimes it sucks. You signed up for this. That's the price of admission. Get over yourself. Sometimes you feel lonely. Wow. But here's the thing.

While I agree with that a little bit, there's a big difference between being lonely sometimes and being isolated. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves. their teams and their profits. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and today's conversation is about making sure that you're not isolated so that you don't accidentally make a big decision and fail because many times in the absence of counsel, we do really stupid things and you don't want to do something stupid that you can't recover from. So you need somebody in your corner.

You need a coach. You need an advocate. You need somebody that's a part of your support network to help you stay on track. We all need it. None of us are immune to the fact that, well, sometimes we just make a good. stupid decisions. So we've got two great conversations today about this. First up, Jerry Colonna. Jerry is the founder and CEO of Reboot.io. He's also the author of the book Reboot. Really cool guy. Coaches executives, top executives of multi-billion dollar companies. He's coached some of the biggest

CEOs on the planet and help them experience their own breakthroughs. And then after that, we're going to talk with Ramsey leader, John Falcons. I say we. It's actually George Camel, Ramsey Network host, who's going to sit down with Falcons. And they're going to break down what good coaching actually looks like. You know, there's some do's and don'ts when you're hiring a coach. Some of them are great. Some of them not so great. They're going to walk you through that.

So you want to stick around for that for sure. At first, we got our conversation with Jerry Colonna. And we talked about the fact that a lot of leaders, to become a good leader, to build a business, you've got this thing of being self-sufficient. You know, like you figure it out. You hack your way through it. You find solutions. You're resourceful.

And that self-sufficiency can be, well, it can be a blessing. It can also be a curse. The dark side of self-sufficiency is we can get isolated and we have a hard time letting other people in. Why is it as leaders that we struggle with this? Well, I think it has to do with power. It has to do with expectations and projections of what does it mean to lead and lead well. I'll give you an example when I'm talking about. I think that most folks attain leadership somewhat accidentally.

We do our job well and then we get promoted and then we do a job well and then we get promoted. And, you know, all of a sudden we're in this experience where we feel tremendous responsibility. And, you know, this is the best of us. This is not power hungry people. This is most of us. we carry into that experience an ideal of what it means to be a leader. And that ideal we learn as a kid. And the ideal goes like this.

That person up at top, call it the top of the pyramid, call it the president, call it God, call it our parents. They have all the answers. That's why they're up there. They're infallible. The truth is we know better than that. but we don't feel that difference. Then all of a sudden we have power and we're in that position

and we think we're supposed to have all the answers. We think that our job as the CEO is to tell everybody what to do. And in fact, there's a little bit of a collusion goes on because many people that report to us think their job is to do what we tell them to do. And that's it. Simple structure, except that it's a lot more complicated than that. Because inside, we are scared because we actually don't know what to do. And we're making it up every single day.

And we're going by instinct, whether we're talking about being a CEO, a husband or a wife, or a parent. we're just making it up. It seems like leaders especially. I mean, you talk about this idea of accidental leadership. We get there kind of striving for it, but then you get to understand what it really is, and you go, oh, there's so much more here that I don't know. And that imposter syndrome can really kick in. I know it did for me. When I got to the, you know, air quotes, top of my environment, the number of times, Jerry, that I just thought, I really don't know.

know what I'm doing, but I don't know how to say that. And if I tried to say that, they would say, well, then you're not qualified to do this anymore, or they wouldn't follow me into the next battle, even though my job is to lead them there. And I felt alone in it. And I know we talked to a lot of our clients, thousands of small business owners across the country, they feel isolated in that. And they're not lonely per se, because it's a paradox of they're around a lot of people. So it feels like socially we're engaged, yet internally there's this isolation of, do I really deserve to be here? At the risk of sounding like a fool, I'm going to quote Shakespeare with my Brooklyn accent, so you're all going to have to handle that.

This is great. But in Henry IV, Prince Hal has been early promoted. We can talk about that because his father has died. He ascends to the throne of England. and immediately he's challenged by the French. And they move a whole army into Calais, which at this point was English territory across the English Channel. And so he has to raise a battalion and he sails across the channel.

And it's the night before what's called the Battle of Agincourt. And he realizes that they're outnumbered 10 to 1. Because it's Shakespeare. Of course, they're outnumbered 10 to 1. And in a soliloquy, he says, upon the king, let us our lives, our souls, our debts lay upon the king. Oh, hard condition, we must bear all. It is one of the most poignant speeches about the burden that you just spoke to. Upon the king, let us our lives, our souls, our debts lay upon the king. Oh, hard condition, we must bear all.

There's a fallacy in the soliloquy. And the fallacy is, is as the king, as the leader, as the one who holds power, it's our job to bear it all. And you take that impulse, coupled with the myth that we're supposed to have all the answers, and you have a prescription for heartache and loneliness. You have the understanding of why we say it's lonely at the top. Because if I tell my employees that I don't know the answer, what if they leave? Right. Exactly.

What if they abandon me? Now, the problem with that thinking is that the leader cuts themselves off from the most valuable resource they have available to them, and that is their team. In that soliloquy moment, Henry loses. side of the fact that he's got a battalion of people who are more experienced than he is, and that he can turn to them and say, hey, guys, what do you think we should do? What do you think we should do about this battle? By the way, the English won that battle.

Yay. Good job. It worked out. That would be Shakespeare. They have to win. That's right. He was a propagandist. I want you to unpack something earlier.

you said that this whole thing would be a recipe for heartache and loneliness. And I can just imagine many business owners hearing that going, okay, so you've got some heartache, you've got some loneliness, that's the price of admission for leadership. Leadership's hard. What's the big deal? Personally, I've experienced that course being run out to its worst case scenario in my own life to the point of burnout and implosion and anxiety and all this. It just hijacked me. But for somebody that has not experienced to that. Can you say more about what's really at stake if these things aren't tended to? Sure. There's a couple of things I'd say to that. First of all, I want to acknowledge and say, you're right. If you're not having trouble, it's a okay. And in some level, it's important to just

know that this is part of the job. But the truth is, the folks that I speak to think that this is somehow not part of the job. They think that they're doing something wrong because they feel lousy. Right. So that's the first thing I would say. The second and the more important thing is, you know, I'm going to take you back to you, Daniel. You know, you just said it.

Okay. And the truth of the matter is you're not the exception. You're the rule. Now, how do I know that this is true? For the most part, because we're talking about leadership in business. I'm going to be gender-specific. We're almost, not always, but mainly talking about men. And one of the leading causes of death for men ages 35 and 60 is slow depression. Showing up in addictive behaviors, alcohol abuse, or toxic behaviors within the home,

or divorce, which is a leading indicator. of early premature death. So there's this silent group, and there's a psychologist named Terrence Real who wrote a wonderful book about this called I Just Don't Want to Talk About It, Men and Depression. And so you've got this powerful experience going on. But as they say on TV, but wait, there's more. Several years ago, I was on CNN, and I was part of a documentary about mental health in entrepreneurship.

And after the documentary, I got a phone call from the head of human resources at one of the largest software companies in the world. And she called and she said, I need you to come talk to our executives. I need you to come in and talk to us. And so I started a problem. He said, what's going on? She said, healthcare claims for depression and anxiety among the children of the executives had skyrocketed in the previous years.

I'm going to say this again. Depression and anxiety among the children of the senior executives had skyrocketed. So here's the thing. You want to pay this price, be my guest. But don't you dare ask your children to pay that price? It's one of the biggest things I've learned from you is this notion of being able to hold simultaneously different emotions. that almost seem competing without having to be binary about it. I always thought, well, if you're sad, you can't also be glad. If you're angry, you can't be nice. You have to be in an angry state.

And a lot of your work hits on this, and it's impacted me in a big way, and just being able to say, I actually feel all these things at the same time. And I don't have to give up my man card to feel sad, and I don't have to, et cetera, right? I mean, they all go together. That's right. That's right. The hard. harder thing. See, we teach ourselves that the false grit, the false structure is a sign of our strength. But the thing that takes more strength is the ability to hold the entire Michigas. I'm from Brooklyn's Michigan. I'm from West Texas. We don't use that word in West Texas. I need help. Okay. Well, okay. It means the whole crazy mess of it all. Okay.

Together. That takes more strength. What takes strength is to be both strong and soft, firm and gentle, simultaneously, at one in the same time, to create space for sadness and grief while simultaneously creating space for duty and honor and responsibility. In my experience, and I know you've seen this countless times because it's the work you do, I only started getting comfortable with figuring out what I would call those paradoxes by immersing myself in the context of coaching or mentorship or other people who helped me

mirror back some things or were safe places to process some of this stuff. And that's a lot of why we offer coaching. I think it's why you do coaching because it seems very rare that somebody ends up experiencing, I guess, self-discovery on this front without some other person who can come alongside them and help. You said earlier, this is a myth that needs to be altered. This is a lie that's being told and it needs to be countered with the truth. And that truth almost always comes in the form of a coach and advisor, somebody who's grounded in who they are, who can actually give that encouraging feedback and invite somebody into a truer reality. and pull them out of the lies and toxic limiting beliefs that they've grown up with.

So I'd love to hear from your vantage point. What is it that coaching does in that? What's the power, the magic in coaching? Because a lot of people have heard about it now. Yeah, okay, coaching. I get that that's a thing. Why do I need to work with a coach versus just reading a book about all this stuff? I'm going to take your question about coaching and put it into a larger question,

which is that one of the really uncomfortable realities of our society is that we don't actually listen to each other. We don't reward the listening skills, which include, by the way, silence, letting someone finish a thought. This piece was taught to me by my teacher Parker Palmer as a great Quaker writer. Learning how not to fix is an essential part of listening well. because, you know, and this is really hard for entrepreneurs. It tends to be hard for the male of the species. Because we see a problem and our first impulse is to try to alleviate it, is to fix it. And by the way, we reward this as a skill set in business leadership.

We promote people who fix. Yeah. Right. Right. The problem with the movement towards fixing is it actually shut. down the person who's suffering and doesn't give them the place to actually experience the fullness of it. So first step is learning to listen. How do we do the fixing thing or the how do we fix the not fixing? The not fixing when ultimately the duty of an organization is to solve a problem

in the world, essentially fixing something. And so the whole dynamic kind of hinges off of this. We're here to solve problems. And any problem that gets in our way internally of solving that problem becomes the problem we have to fix. And when it's tied to a person, well, yeah, I'm going to hear you out for a second, but it's only long enough to jump into how can we fix the problem so we can get back to work. How do we still solve problems and not miss people? How do we actually listen without just sitting around and being kumbaya and still honor the utility that an organization is supposed to deliver into the marketplace? Right. So I'm going to bring your attention to a little bit. I just flashed to your West Texas upbringing. Oh, my God. That's just kumbaya. We're just sitting around. It's all soft. Oh, just notice it. Okay. Here's a radical thought. People are not problems. People are not problems. Markets have problems. Markets have opportunities. Companies are organized to take.

advantage of market opportunities and sometimes that means disrupting existing players or fixing customers problems but your people are not problems their people that's good now that does not mean you don't hold them accountable for doing the good work but you can be humane and hold people accountable. Again, holding opposing thoughts, what seemed to be contradictory thoughts. Oh, this is kumbaya if I, no, it's not. One of the most kindest things that you can do may be to help someone transition to a new job because they feel miserable if they're failing. There is no reason you have to give up kindness. Kindness and success are not opposing thoughts. And it doesn't take a lot of in terms of extra time. As I've learned how to be better at listening and creating space to just

hear somebody without jumping to, okay, I've got to fix this. You know, this obsession towards, you know, there's a problem, attack it, move on. As I've exercised these muscles, I found out that it's actually in a weird way more efficient organizationally to slow down and see people and listen because what increases is trust. And when trust and rapport increase, then people feel safer to make decisions and to be on the front lines without having to check in on every little thing. And then the net result is the rising tide raises all ships

and the whole organization actually moves at a higher clip when we slow down to see people. The Navy SEALs have a phrase that slow is smooth, smooth is fast fast as deadly and that's really what we're saying here isn't it yeah what we're talking about is when we slow down and see people not as problems then we get to smooth and the way to create persistent consistent stable growth in a business is smooth it's not fast and it's not slow it's responding in in this way but i'm want to bring this back to something we're saying a little bit before about the loneliness.

So why do we fix? We fix more often than not because we can't bear to deal with the thing that's not fixable or not fixed. And so we barrel over somebody to fix it. And then we pat ourselves in the back and say, I fixed it. So one of the ways that we alter that behavior is to say to ourselves, whose feelings am I trying to take care of in that moment? Right? Because if you come to me and you say, Jerry, I'm struggling, and I've got a boatload of things that I'm trying to get done today. And I'm like, it's okay, Daniel, just do X, Y, and Z, but da, da, da, and I fixed you.

Now I can get back to my anxiety producing list of things to do. And I, and whether or not you actually feel better, it doesn't really matter to me. Because that was about your feelings. because it was about my feelings. It has nothing whatsoever about doing you. I want to take it to this other point about the top of the pyramid and the role of the leader. And think of that isolation. One of the downsides of seeing everybody in our team as a problem that needs to be fixed is that it isolates us even further.

I'll tell you a quick story. I had a client come in, venture capitalist back company. He called me and he was really upset because he had told his team he was going to get a term sheet for funding. And at the very last minute, the VC pulled the funding. And he said to me, what do I tell my team? They're going to be freaked out. And he said, how about the truth? No, no, no, no, they're going to be too scared. You hear how he's fixing and managing? Okay. Okay, with my encouragement, he told the team. Can you know what the team did? They voluntarily took a 10% pay cut to conserve cash to get to the next round of financing.

Wow. Now, you talk about a spree to core. You talk about getting your colleagues to have the same sense of buy-in. Give them the opportunity to collaboratively fix the problem. And everybody's sense of we're in this in together, Rose. You know, I think about one of my biggest objections before I started working with a coach. it was a misperception, but it was that if I go down this path, I'm going to have to choose at some point between success and being who I really need to be. I'm going to have to choose between money and influence and things that are attractive to me and then becoming this better person by laying all of that down. And what I experienced is I didn't really have to choose. My definition of success broadened. It still included certain aspects of things that were attractive and fun for me and my family,

but it was such a more robust definition of what it means to be healthy and successful. What do you think about that? I think you were healing yourself by broadening that definition. It's an expression of that actualization as an adulthood. And, you know, I have been fortunate to be financially successful. in my life, and I am grateful for that. It has enabled me to do things like build a school in rural Tibet, right, for orphans. But what I'm proudest of is the relationship I have with my children, who are all adults now as they keep reminding me. When we broaden the definition of what does it

mean to be successful to include good ethics, treating people with kindness, and to do our jobs well, the craft of the job well, which sometimes is measured by financial success, but not always. Then we have a really robust experience in this journey of life. And it's fun. It's a much more fun way to live one's life when you have that broadened definition. It's much more fun. Indeed. Jerry, your work reboot podcast, reboot the book, has impacted.

so many. Personally, it's been amazing for me and our coaches love you and we really appreciate your time here today and all the wisdom you've offered. As we wrap up, any final thoughts? Oh, just tell everybody there. I love them and I'm grateful for the work that they do. You know, we are really lucky because we get to have impact. We get to touch the lives of so many people. So to quote the poet David White, good work, done well for the right reasons. That's what it's about. He is Jerry Colonna. Definitely encourage you to check out the book, Reboot, and he's one of my favorite

podcast if you're going to listen to another one, and you should. Be sure to check that out. Jerry, thank you so much. You're always welcome back on the Entry Leadership podcast. We appreciate you, friend. Thanks for having me. All right, guys, great conversation with Jerry. Now, clearly, he's an advocate for coaching.

I love coaching. I'm a big believer in it. In fact, we have a whole program oriented around coaching. So if you're working with a coach or you're thinking that you might need to, you got to start with asking the question, what does good coaching actually look like? We're going to talk about that right after this. All right, folks, as I mentioned at the top of the show, we have back in the Entree Leadership Studio, becoming a regular thing now. Lots of fun. Ramsey Network host, George Camel. Welcome back. Great to be back with you. So it's been fun because you've been sitting down and getting behind the scenes, peeling back the curtain, as it were, with Ramsey leaders on not just the principles that we're talking about on the podcast, but how it actually works here with our leadership team. Yeah, and when it comes to coaching, I can think of no one better than John Falcons, our director of coaching, for Entree leadership.

Many of you listening to this podcast, you know him, you love him, and he's a wealth of knowledge when it comes to coaching. And, you know, this word gets thrown around a lot. And people have different connotations in their mind of what coaching is. Maybe they had a bad coaching experience. So I really wanted to get to the nuts and bolts of what a good coaching experience looks like. You know, I've had great coaching experiences. Some of my best leadership breakthroughs were a result of working with a coach. But there's also people that have had really bad experiences.

And I think it's because this space has a low barrier to entry because anybody can just be a self-proclaimed life coach. You know, you can put out a shingle and go, I'm a coach. And they don't have any dang credentials and they don't know what they're doing. And hey, I'd get on them for trying. But the thing is, if you're in business, it's high stakes, man. You need somebody that knows what they're doing and there's a right way to do it. Yes. And no one wants to waste their time.

And so I sat down with John and really started to unpack what a good coaching experience looks like. because we know here at Entree Leadership, there's a certain way to do it well. A good coaching experience is one where somebody or somebody's helps you grow. I mean, that's just what it comes down to. Now, the how that works is they're helping you see their blind spots. They're encouraging you along the way. They're giving you insight or feedback on things that you're stuck on, and you get further than you would have if you didn't have these people in your life.

It's as simple and as difficult as that. So it sounds like part of this is the coach kind of acts as a mirror to the leader, to the business owner, to go, here's what I'm seeing. Yeah. And here's how we can move forward to help you grow. Yeah, absolutely. It, you know, teaching somebody something is one thing. And that's great for transferring knowledge or information. And that needs to happen.

But when you're coaching somebody or somebody, you know, you're in a coaching experience. you are doing a lot of the thinking, you are doing a lot of the answering of questions. And that's the key is a good coach or a good coaching environment should be, like you said, holding up a mirror or causing you to ask yourself some hard questions and come up with some meaningful answers to those questions so that you can grow to the next milestone in your journey. So for the leader that's out there and they're going, I don't think coaching's for me. That's for a certain type of person. Yeah.

What are those myths that people kind of need to get over in order to get into coaching? Well, that one you just said. I don't need it. I don't need it. Every champion of any sort in any endeavor has had a coach. And most of them had multiple coaches. So in sports, in business, the people that have really excelled and set the standard in their arena has had somebody that has been able to encourage them. guide them, coach them to a higher level than they would have done on their own.

And so here's the thing, George. You know, I know. We do coaching. This isn't about working with us. If somebody goes to somebody else and has a great experience, well, bless their heart. That's awesome. I really mean that. But don't go it alone.

Don't do this on your own. You won't get as far down the road. And it'll be a lot more painful if you try and do it in isolate. That's strong. And for the business leader who may go, John, I've got to where I am today. I'm pretty successful. I've got a team. We're making good money. I don't think I need someone to tell me how to run my business. What do you say to that guy? I say you're right. You don't need somebody to tell you how you're, you know, to run your business. Because as you know, George, we've got people all over the place, you know, professional photographers or construction people. We've got

people running IT companies. We've got people running manufacturing companies. Guess what? A coach is not going to be an expert in all of those things. And in fact, they shouldn't be. What they should be an expert in is what you said, holding up that mirror and helping you look at a list of things. And that list contains two types of things. It contains the things that contributed to your success. It's like, I succeeded to this level because of these things. But then there's another part of that list that are the things that are true about you that you succeeded in spite of. And what coaching about is helping you grow the because of's and shrink the in spite of us. And so we're all at mixed bag. We're all at mix of, you know, I've won to this level,

I've gotten to this level because of this and in spite of this. And it's not about fixing broken people. It's not about taking somebody that's bad and turning them into. good. It's about taking somebody that's good, that has succeeded, that has the swagger to say what you said. I've succeeded to this point. Why do I need to talk something? And help them get even better. That's what coaching is about. So the negative connotations, we can just drop those right now and go that. It's not about, hey, you're a failure. You need to do better. It's going, you're, you are where you are. Yeah. But that's not where we want to stay. That's right. I love that. That's not where you want to stay. Absolutely. Let's let's help you get there.

So here at Entree Leadership, we got into the coaching game a while back. What made us take the jump and go? We got to start doing this group coaching thing. Yeah, we were doing events. Dave was going around the country and here in Nashville and basically answering the question, this is how I run my business. This is what I have done. You know, the genesis of Entree Leadership, that whole story.

But what would happen is people would come to that event, and after the event, they would say, I totally believe what Dave was saying, I want to run that business or my business that way. And they'd get back to their office and they'd be sitting there at their desk by themselves and they'd say, well, this is harder to implement than it is to understand. I'd like to talk to somebody. I'd like to ask somebody a question. And we didn't have an answer for that. We didn't have a way to help people. And so about almost 10 years ago, we started offering that kind of help where we would have an ongoing conversation.

with people and help them apply what they had learned. And then beyond that, we even evolved into just helping that person grow as a leader in really what is coaching, not just advising people on how to implement the principles, but actually coaching them, doing executive coaching. I know we were talking about this. We have both advisory groups and we have an executive coaching program. And the advisory groups are really that group of people, that small board of advisors that you can have so that you don't go with this alone. And the executive coaching is more around working with you as an individual to help you grow. So when it comes to group coaching, what are those advisory groups like here?

I know they could be different elsewhere, but how do we do advisory groups? Yeah, the thing that is so cool is, you know, if any industry that you're in, you probably can go to an industry convention. If you're in construction or whatever, there are associations where you can go learn construction best practices. And so we don't have groups arranged around industry. Well, we've got groups arranged around and what people get into groups for is because we have a common set of beliefs about how a business should be run, the dignity of people, the nobility of business, the fact that people die in isolation. And so you shouldn't go at this alone. We care about people. We care about

the quality of what we're doing. And so we formed. groups, we bring people together that all have that same worldview, that same set of beliefs that work matters, and that we care about our people, and we want to do this in a way that upholds those beliefs. And so we get people that are roughly at the same stage of business, you know, so if they just starting out or they've been at it for 20 years, we group people according to those kind of things. And then we start having, like I said, that roundtable conversation facilitated by one of our coaches so it stays focused and there's accountability around the things that people commit to on the calls. And you just get that insight, that feedback. And really what grows out of that

is confidence. And so you have the confidence to run your business that you don't get when you're just kind of making it up as you go when you're by yourself. Yeah, I got to join in as a fly on the wall on one of these advisory group calls because I wanted to see what the experience was like. Yeah. And so I got to hang out with one of our coaches Bubba as he led one of our advisory groups. And it was so interesting to me that even though this is a business advisory group, things got personal. Of course. So talk to me about bridging that gap between, hey, we're here to talk about business problems, but somehow it always gets personal. Well, because business is inhabited by people. And, you know, Dave has talked about this. You can't take a person and split them into private

and professional life. Like you said, the calls are about their business, but it comes down to you as the leader, you know, you're the problem and you're the solution. And so you've got to look in the mirror and you've got to say, hey, what do I have to do different? You know, if you're looking at your team and you're saying, I don't have a team of champions, well, who does that fall to? That falls to you as the leader of that team and you've got to do something about it. And those conversations go that way. I'm trying to think of the right word. They end up being there. They find those spots where somebody's got a blind spot or they've got something that they're scared of, frankly. And they get the encouragement to face that dragon and attack it and overcome it and become that leader that they want to be

and really that their team needs them to be. Yeah. And that's personal. That's hugely powerful. on the personal side there, and I've seen our coaches, you know, they're checking in with people's families going, hey, how's your mom doing? I know who's in the hospital? And it's just fascinating because I think these business leaders, they don't have that outside of that. They're not going to their team with these kinds of problems, and they can't. Yeah, that's right. They need to be seen at a certain level from their team, and they can go, hey, I'm trying to transition this leader. Can the team help? They're at the top, and it's lonely at the top. Yeah. So what you're talking about is that sense of community where they can share these things. I go, I haven't told anyone this. That's absolutely right. When they're in that conversation with people that are facing the same kind of things, they've got somebody that they can open up to and talk about the difficult things that they're trying to make happen. And the fact of the matter is when you're the leader of the organization, more and more of your day is just problem solving. And it involves people. And it's hard conversations. And a lot of times there's emotions involved. People have feelings. And they don't, you know, it's not easy to address all that stuff.

stuff. But the very fact that it's not easy to address is something that a group does for, you know, for each of the owners on there. And it's two things. The group, it does a lot of things, but to this point, it helps you recognize that it's difficult and that you're actually fearful of it. And that's why you're avoiding it. But a great thing that groups does is the accountability. Because, as you know, you saw on that call, you sat there, you listened to people, get insight, feedback. They stated their challenge. This is the thing. that I'm working on. And then at the end of the call, the coach is saying, okay, what are you going to do? What are you going to commit to this group, to your peers here that you're going to have done in two weeks from now that we can ask you about? And then you get on the next call. And it's like, hey, George, you said you were going to have that difficult conversation with that team member, how to go. And the whole group is there. And the whole group is there. And they're watching, going, all right, let's see if they did it. Yeah, that's right. And get the update. And there's no shame here. Like I was on the call. And it was so, it was just cool to see people who,

didn't know each other other other than being in this group for a long period of time. And so they have this rapport, this context with each other, this community. They've built over time, built that trust. And it was just so powerful to see the level of encouragement, even though they're in totally different places across the country, totally different industries. And yet they were all in the same playing field going, hey, we're in this together and we want to help each other grow. Yeah, they really do form a band of brothers. Like you said, the groups stay together. And so those bonds build, they learn to trust each other.

They learn to share things that they can't share with other people. And it really becomes powerful. So let's get tactical here for people that are still curious about how this all works. Yeah. What are the tactical ins and outs? How long is this? How are these held? Where are they held?

Yeah. What does that look like? Yeah. So our groups, you know, we've got, as you know, people all over the country that are in the group. So we use a video conference to do that. I can even say we did that back in the day. That's how we started. Before it was cool.

Before it was cool, we did video conferencing just because we can connect more people that way. And so it's two calls a month. They get on for just a little over an hour. One of our coaches is on there. And like we've talked about, they get on. They kind of report in, hey, I did my homework, quote unquote, homework. That thing that I said. So they check in around accountability.

And then they'll talk about, hey, this is the thing that I'm faced with, right now. Maybe it didn't go so well. Maybe it went great and I'm on to the next thing. Maybe the seasonality in my business is it's crunch time and I'm looking for people. Maybe it's, I got to find different people, whatever it is. It could be anything. And then they roundtable that issue and they get insight from their peers and then they get to the end of the call and basically they answer the question, okay, as a result of what you've heard, what do you want to commit to? What are you willing to commit to? And it needs to be action oriented. It can't be, you know, philosophical. It can't be well, I want to do better. Well, no, like, how are you going to get better? What can you commit to in an

actionable fashion? And the coach is engineered to ask those questions in a way that sets people up for success and holds them accountable on that action item. And then it rolls around to that next call in a month and we go back in. And it's kind of rinse and repeat, honestly. It's always something new in terms of the challenges, but the format stays the same. And we do that because we've seen over the years, that's what drives progress. People, they get that little milestone and they make the progress and then they do it again, they do it again, and they do it again. And, you know, it's that thing of like, after years, you're an overnight success. And that's, you just stack the firewood up one piece at a time and that's how the job gets done. And people make it further because they have that accountability

and they have that feedback that are from folks in the same kind of seat. So for those that maybe aren't seeing the value yet of why I should be a part of coaching, not entree leadership coaching, but just coaching in general. And they haven't made that leap for maybe one of the reasons we talked about earlier. Maybe they've got to swallow some pride and go, I can get better and I need someone who's outside of my business to help me. What encouragement would you give them to take that step and what might that step look like? Well, I think a lot of times that comes down to what kind of coach, there's like a mismatch

with the coaching that they're engaged in or they're looking at versus what they need. So if you're somebody, if it's somebody that is thinking about starting a business, well, they probably need some coaching around their own personal kind of time management and motivation around getting out there and making that first sales call and putting their idea into action. And so you need to make sure that if that's the stage that you're in, that that's the kind of coaching relationship that you're in. If you've got a team of people and you're trying to lead them, you're trying to hit some goals,

you're trying to make your business go forward, you probably need to be in conversation with other people that are at a similar stage of what you're doing and getting that kind of feedback. And then you'll start, when you get that good match, then you'll start to see the value. And so that's the thing that I see most frequently, George's is, you know, somebody is trying to learn to play basketball and they have a guitar teacher. And it's like the basketball is just not getting any better. It's because of that mismatch between your objectives and the expectations. So it's not about finding any coaching.

You've got to find the right type of coaching. Yeah. And that circles us back to how we help people the most is, like I said, those folks that have got that same mindset, they've got the same values. They're looking at Ramsey's solutions and they're saying, you know what? I want to scale a business with soul. I want to do work that matters. I want to treat my team with dignity. I want a team. I don't want employees. I want to figure out how to do this and do it in a way that I have good life balance and don't wreck my family in the process. It's those kind of values and that worldview.

If that lines up, then you know you're in the right spot. John, I love the way you've been leading our coaching program here at Entree Leadership. And I love how on mission you are for helping the business owners listening get to that next level. So thanks so much. Thanks, George. Thanks, George and Falcons. Now, guys, I got to tell you, we did live events with Entry Leadership for a long time and we didn't have coaching.

And the consistent feedback from our event attendees, business owners, just like you, was a request for ongoing support, ongoing implementation advice on how to take the Entry Leadership Principles and put them into action in their business. And that's when we launched coaching. And it was a game changer because we started seeing clients actually transform not only their own leadership team, but their entire business and the way that they do business in the marketplace as a result of having a lifeline, having a coach, having a sounding board that's cheering for you, that's your advocate. And for us, that's what coaching's all about is a better

way for us to support you beyond the event, beyond the podcast, beyond the books. So if you're wondering if that's right for you, we don't have a high-pressured system here. You can raise your hand, talk to an advisor, get some more information. But Entree Leadership, Elite Coaching is absolutely a Game changer, and I want to encourage you to check it out. If you want to get a little bit more information, just click on the link in the show notes, and you can be speaking with an advisor very shortly. All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed the episode of the show today. If you did, be sure to leave us a review and subscribe. Thank you for that. And if you're a small business owner between 2 and 200 team members, we'd love to have a live conversation with you, ask a few

questions, and figure out how we can make the podcast even better for your business. All you got to do is click on the link in the show notes, and our producer Tim will be in touch. shortly. As always, you can follow us on social media. It's a great way to stay engaged with us and the team between podcast episodes and outside of the live event experience. We'd love to hang out with you over there. This episode was produced by Tim Hull. It was edited by Zach Bennett, mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and on behalf of George Camel and the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning, and keep If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network,

like Borrowed Future. Not so fun fact, America has a $1.6 trillion student loan crisis, and it's out of control. I'm George Camel, host of the Borrowed Future podcast, where we uncover the underbelly of the student loan industry and show you what you can do about it. It'll inspire you to see that it is possible to avoid student loans and graduate college debt-free. Listen to Borrowed future wherever you listen to podcasts.