More Clients Won't Make You Rich

What does it feel like to care about a person, have the desire to accelerate that individual, no matter what it takes, because they trusted you to do that?

More clients look like success.

That's what we've been told as coaches, right?

So the golden rule in coaching is simple.

More clients, more success, right?

More revenue, more impact, more everything.

Well, Mitch Russo,

built his entire business on that rule.

And then he discovered that it was backwards.

So welcome to the real Jason Duncan podcast.

I am your host, the real Jason Duncan, and every guest on this show is here for one specific reason.

It's that they used to believe something that turned out to be wrong.

And some of my guests figured it out on their own and some had to be knocked on their rear end before they figured it out.

But either way, by the time

They sit in this chair on the other side of the microphone.

They know the difference between what's real and what isn't.

And the lies that do the most damage are the ones that look like wisdom.

They're the ones that everybody repeats, the ones that you're so sure about that nobody ever questions them.

A lie like that builds a cage around you.

And here's why we stay in it.

The cage looks like gold.

It looks like the smart play.

It looks like the good life, strong business.

you know, the right way to do things, but nobody walks away from something that looks like success.

And that's the problem with these types of lies.

And that's what the show is about.

The gold is a lie.

And every conversation here is about finding the cage and seeing that the gold was never real and then encouraging you to walk out of that.

Well, the lie that my guests believe today is the one that every coach gets sold on day one, more clients,

means a more successful business.

More clients, more revenue, more proof you're doing it right.

And of course, it sounds like simple math.

I mean, it looks obvious.

That's the path to growth, right?

That's, but that's the cage, according to Mitch.

And we're going to talk about that.

And it's a golden cage because a full roster on your coaching platform sounds like you're winning.

So he built his coaching platform that way.

He stacked the roster, he took the clients.

And then what he found was that a full calendar, he had a full calendar of half committed people.

That's not really a successful business.

It's a busy one, but not necessarily successful.

And the clients who actually transformed through his coaching were fewer, they were better matched, and they were all in.

And that inversion

Didn't just change how he coaches.

He actually built his entire software platform around it.

And we're going to talk about that today.

My guest is Mitch Russo.

He one of my business coaches.

Mitch and I have worked together.

He was my coach for a while.

And but he started a software company in his garage.

He sold that company for eight figures.

Then he became the president and CEO of Business Breakthroughs.

International with Tony Robbins.

I think you've probably heard of that guy and Chet Holmes.

You've probably heard of that guy.

Mitch has been nominated twice for Inc Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year.

He's written four books on scaling and coaching.

Oh, five books, excuse me, five books.

And he built a coaching platform designed around the exact inversion that we're talking that we're going to talk about and how we're going to take apart today.

Fewer, better fit clients with trackable outcomes.

instead of a packed roster.

So Mitch Russo, welcome back to the show.

Thank you, Jason.

It's been such a pleasure reconnecting and I'm so glad to be with you today.

I have some great tips to share for folks and I hope that if you're listening to the show, get a pencil and pad.

You may want to take some notes because it took me a long time to figure some of this stuff out and I don't want you to lose it.

It's really important.

So Mitch was a guest on my show back in 2021.

He was episode number 31, and this is episode number 379.

So it's been quite a bit of time has passed since Mitch was on the show.

But I want to tell everybody, Mitch, a little bit about the funny, the funny way.

that I figured out who you were.

Because I think it's funny, and I'm probably told this the last time you were on the show, but somebody, a mutual acquaintance of ours, through an organization that we were both members of at the time, introduced us.

And I happened to be in Destin, Florida, on vacation with my wife the day that we were supposed to have our call.

And I was sitting out on the beach with my wife, which is not a very fun thing for me to do.

I'm not a beach person, but I'm sitting out there, the wind is blowing terrible.

And I'm looking at my watch going, oh crap, I got to get back to the RV because we were RV camping across the street so I could take this call with this guy named Mitch.

I didn't really know anything about you, but because the way we were introduced, I was going to take the call.

And so I thought, you know what, I'm not going to walk back.

I'm just going to do it from here.

So I covered myself up with a towel and I had my cell phone.

And I'm doing a Zoom call with this guy named Mitch.

I don't know who you are, but you turned out to be a really cool guy.

We talked a little bit, just some business.

And I'm like, yeah, man, we should reconnect.

And of course we did.

But then in between that call and the next call, I figured out who you were.

I'm like, holy crap, this dude's been business partners with Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes.

And I'm sitting on a beach with a towel over my head talking to this guy.

How stupid was that?

So you forgave me for that faux pas.

We ended up working together.

You were one of my coaches.

And this podcast is part of your legacy, my man.

I don't know if you've ever thought about that.

You weren't the only one, but at the time you were actively saying, you need to do the podcast.

You need to do it.

And you helped me come up with the original name of the show.

You were around when I started doing my coaching program.

You have a lot to do with what's going on right now.

So I owe you, man.

You've been good.

I love it.

I love it.

And your friendship is the way I get paid.

So thank you for...

But you know what the difference is, and you just actually illustrated the entire topic of today's show.

You listened.

You trusted me.

You did what I asked you to do, and you got the results.

And so what that did for me is, sure, I got a fee, but so what was more important?

is that I helped another person build their legacy company.

We did it together.

We both made mistakes and it was okay because we had a relationship and that relationship was, it was durable.

We went through some stuff, we built some stuff that didn't work and we had to fix that as well.

But the bottom line is that when you do it the right way, it's much, much more than money.

It's the relationship, but it's also the personal fulfillment of having done what I just explained.

Now, yes, Jason gave me a great testimonial, and you probably will see it on my website under the testimonials tab, because after all, that's what testimonials are for.

I teach people how to use testimonials to do all kinds of things, like raise their rates, to get better clients, to really focus more on their core strengths.

But here's the other thing, and this is important, it leads to the topic.

When I was coaching a lot of clients, and it was back in the time that we were working together, I had a very large client roster.

I was very unfulfilled.

I was not happy.

I felt like my personal, I felt like my personal life was being intruded on by my business life, and it was not something I looked forward to.

When I finally brought it down to my core four or five clients, everything changed.

My rates went up, my work got better, my client results improved, my relationships improved, and the satisfaction that I received from working with others and supporting them was far more than I ever had before.

That was kind of a hint, if you will, as to why a big client list, although, I mean, look, the money was there.

Yeah.

I got to, you know, if you think about it, you know, say, oh yeah, you know, we've had X hundreds of clients to the program.

Ultimately, none of that really matters.

Is coaching going to make you rich?

Yes, if you know how.

Is it going to make you rich as a solo coach?

Never.

So don't even bother if you're thinking of starting.

Surely you could start as a solo coach, but the true money comes in scaling.

And that's what I teach now.

If you go to my website, we're entirely focused on scaling coaching organizations through certification licensing and my software platform as well.

You were doing what every coach has told every coach to do, right?

It's fill the roster, chase the volume, treat the headcount as a scoreboard.

And somewhere in there, you start seeing that the scoreboard is measuring the wrong thing entirely.

And that's what the lie started to have cracks in it for you.

Like, wait a minute, this is not true.

I tell you, I have been

You were with me at the beginning of my coaching journey, because I spent over a decade in pastoral ministry, then I spent four years as a school teacher, then I did about 10, 12 years running a company full-time.

And then when I exited, I didn't really know what I was gonna do.

And you came along at the right time, and I had people asking me questions about coaching.

And so I started coaching, and you helped me structure everything.

And as you said, we did some good things and some bad things, but no coach is perfect, and it's all about perspective.

But I to this day, Mitch, still want more clients.

And I'm not doing a lot of one-on-one.

And this show is not about me, but I'm not doing a lot of one-on-one.

I have the mastermind is the main thing.

But I want more people in there.

And I'm still like, but I want good people because I've had some bad people and they're not good for the group.

But where's the balance?

Because you do want more people because I think if you only have four clients,

That's every client's 25% of your income.

That's scary.

I don't want anybody with 25% of my income.

Like how do you balance this out?

Sure.

So first of all, when I work with a client, it's generally on a long-term project like years.

That's the first thing.

The second thing is, is that if you are needy,

Like what you just said is a needy statement.

If one of my clients goes away, there goes 25% of my income.

If you come from a place of need, you'll never have a business.

You have to be in service first.

And then what happens next is people who need what you offer, you support them.

And then from there, you raise your prices based on the results you got from your last clients.

Now, for me, coaching is a percentage of my business, but it's a smaller percentage than maybe your coaching is for you.

I have other, what you'd call revenue streams, because that, you know, I've always told you and I teach multiple revenue streams, recurring revenue streams is how we all eventually build the life and a life outside of work because recurring revenue is what

keeps the lights on, what pays the bills, and gives us some of the perks that we want.

So between my software platform, my coaching, my programs, and to be honest, my investing, I've done a lot of fun stuff with options investing too, I don't ever have to work very hard at all.

Everything I do now is based on, do I love it or not?

I have fired clients who paid me a lot of money because they were not a fit for me, and I don't mind

Telling them upfront, I said, Look, you're a fantastic person.

I think for another coach, you'd be ideal, but you and I are not really, we're not on the same wavelength.

I think it's time.

Let me give you a refund.

And please, here's three recommendations for other people that I think you should interview.

And the reason I do that is because I'm not fixated on the money.

If they leave, it's not 25% of my income, number one.

And number two, I care more about happiness and satisfaction

than I do about the money.

The money will come if everything else is in place.

If you're sitting here thinking goes, But Mitch, I need the money now.

No, then the money won't come because you're needy.

The whole idea is to find ways to set your life up so that it's a balance between the things you love to do.

So I love to do podcasts.

I love to hang with you.

So for me, this couldn't possibly be work.

I love to write.

I write fiction.

I have three fiction trilogies that are yet unpublished.

This is my first published book as a novel.

I have nine other books ready to go.

I've been writing fiction for 15 years, and I've never published anything until I published Sacred Crossroads.

Why?

Because

I never thought anybody would care about my work.

And finally, I got to the point and said, you know what, I don't care if they do or not.

This is my work.

I love it.

I love writing it.

I love sharing it.

And that's what I'm going to do.

And in the first six months, I ended up with 70 Amazon reviews and some very big

editorial releases as well.

And that's just encouraging me to do more.

And that's what I'm doing now.

So part of my day is working with cover artists, with editors, with formatting people for my books.

Part of my day every day is deep in my writing cave.

And I write just about every day.

The other thing is, is I balance my life with a beautiful

Beautiful relationship with my sweetheart.

We've been together now for the last year and a half, and it's an essential part of my life.

And then part of my life is learning.

I am now probably the best I've ever been when it comes to AI.

I have automated down to almost everything in my life with AI.

I just got finished doing all of my bookkeeping, fired my bookkeeper.

And Claude now is my new bookkeeper.

So Claude does the best job ever.

I'm about to unleash Claude on all of my ad purchasing and evaluation platforms.

And soon there's going to be nothing left for me to do except collect the money.

So.

Collect it and spend it.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, was there a moment when you, when this idea of it's, hey, it's not, it's not the number of clients, it's the, I don't know if quality of clients is the right way you would couch this, but was there a moment when that started turning for you?

Was there something that happened?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was back in 2000, probably 2018 when I had my very first real dissatisfied client.

And everything there told me in advance, I should not have let this guy into my program.

And I didn't listen 'cause I was, I wanted the money.

So I just accepted the client.

But there was so many hints that I, you have to be dumb to have not taken the hints.

And I was dumb at the time.

So what happened at the end of our time together, after he first tried to negotiate my rates,

And then after working with the every session, a third of the time, he didn't show up and then told me it wasn't his fault, so I should not charge him.

Another third of the time, he never did the work I assigned to him and said it wasn't his fault.

So right away, I'm thinking to myself, then finally, at the end of our time together, I mean, you probably remember, I have this habit of when I work with a client,

even after our completed sessions have been paid for and done, I don't stop.

I make sure that the client got everything that they wanted from me and from our relationship, and I just keep going.

Maybe it's an extra session or two, but it's more important to me to make sure that people are really getting what they wanted.

And the way I know that is because we start out building a map of exactly what we're gonna do together even before

We start, if you remember the mind maps and the things I do with that.

Now with ClickCoach, we've automated so much of that.

Now all of everything through the client portal is tracked.

We know your stats every week.

We know whether you answer your accountability questions or not.

We know whether you're showing up for your sessions or not.

We have everything in place.

So the software takes over with the management of the company, but the elevation of the coach is my responsibility.

So I've gotten to the point in my life now where if I don't like somebody, I don't want them as a client.

In fact, I got to the point where if I don't like somebody and they asked me for a referral, I said, I don't really think I know anybody who's a good fit for you.

I wouldn't want to give my good friend Jason Duncan a crappy client because I didn't like him.

So I don't even do that anymore.

I guard my contentment, my happiness, and my peace more than anything else.

You know, and I will say this, coming from that place is far easier than coming from a place of I need money and I gotta hustle.

And so, you know, you might say, well, Mitch, you know, you made money, you don't need to do that anymore.

Truth is, is I made money and I lost money and everybody needs money.

The bottom line is that I don't have that mindset anymore.

And now the money doesn't stop, it comes just as it's supposed to.

But the more important mindset is, how am I gonna live this life?

I get one in this body at this time on this planet.

How am I gonna live this life in as much peace and contentment and love that I can?

And if that means helping people, even if it's sometimes, like I take strategy calls sometimes, they go on for hours.

I never even asked for them to be a client.

I have to wait for them to say, what does it take to work with you or something?

I just got off a call like that before I met with you because I love doing that.

I just love it.

And if you don't love it, please go work at Wendy's.

Go get a job in bookkeeping.

Do something where you can make money by the hour because that's what you need right now.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

Please don't take it the wrong way.

Yeah, well, don't go don't go to the bookkeeping.

Evidently, that's going to be taken over by the AI bots.

Oh, it's already done.

I just saved $3,000 a year with Claude.

So thank you, Claude.

Well, so let's talk about I want to talk about the cost of believing this lie.

But before we do that, I want to take just a second to talk to the listers about a couple of things.

Let's take a quick break to thank our amazing sponsors for making this podcast possible.

First of all, Mr.

and Mrs.

Listener, if you are a business owner, and I'm going to assume that some of the people listening to this are coaches, because that's what we're talking about today.

This idea of coaches just needing more clients is the ticket to success.

And that's the lie that we're uncovering today.

But if you're a business owner and you feel totally trapped in the day-to-days,

And you started the business on your own expertise, your own knowledge, your own know-how, your own connections.

And that was fine at the beginning, but now you find yourself totally trapped.

Even though you have employees, even though you might have some systems, everything still comes across your desk and you're trapped.

Or maybe you're thinking about selling and you don't know how am I going to do this because the business is too reliant upon me.

I have a free training coming up this week.

It's live.

It's called What to Fix Before You Exit.

And I want to invite you to come.

It's free.

It's on Zoom.

It's a webinar.

I'll be going over the seven things that serious buyers are looking for in businesses like yours.

And I'm also going to be talking about the five deal killers.

And again, you don't have to be ready to sell the company now, but at some point you're going to exit and you want to be ready for it.

And it's the same thing to get ready for it is to get you out of the weeds.

That's the punchline.

We got to get you can't be an owner-dependent business.

So if you want to

If you want to do that, go to whattofixbeforeyouexit.com.

That's whattofixbeforeyouexit.com.

Sign up.

I'm doing that this week.

It's free.

It's 60 minutes.

It's live.

You don't want to miss it.

Now, I want to talk about our sponsor for today's episode.

This is also for you as a business owner.

If you're growing a business and you want to learn how to do that with personalized video outreach, then you need to hear about our sponsor for today's episode, Dubb.

Dubb is the video sales platform that I've personally been using since 2018.

And I'm not exaggerating when I say that I use it nearly every day, or at the very least every single week, because Dub makes it easy to record and send videos that stand out in crowded inboxes.

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Head over to therealjasonduncan.com/dubb, that's D-U-B-B.

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Thanks for listening to our sponsors.

Now, back to the show.

All right, so Mitch, let's talk about the cost that nobody adds up on this idea.

So I'm a coach.

That's part of what I do, although I don't generally introduce myself as one much anymore.

People say, what do you do?

I say, I'm an entrepreneur and have a podcast.

And then it leads to, well, what does that mean?

And then I show them about what I do.

But as a coach, there's a cost believing the lie that we're talking about today, this lie that you got to have a roster full of a bunch of people.

Um, so what is the cost in your opinion of that believing, believing that lie?

The cost is misery.

It's that simple.

You're going to be miserable.

The more people you put on your calendar means the more people you have to interact with.

Some will be pleasant and wonderful, some won't.

The more particles you'll have to deal with throughout the day, whether it's phone calls or texts or emails, it's just the more, the more, the more, the more.

And at the end of the day, the net is as unsatisfying.

And then what are you doing in between?

You're looking for more clients.

So all you're really doing is you're in churn mode because you don't have a long term program.

You haven't joined Jason's mastermind.

You haven't done the things that fortify who you are.

So if you're not coaching, teaching, sharing who you are,

not what you learned, not the skill you perfected, but who you are.

And that is effectively an unsustainable business where the wheels turn faster and faster and you're pedaling harder and harder and harder just to keep up.

What do you what do you what's your perspective?

I know this is not the topic of the today's call, but I think it begs the question as a coach has been around the industry for a long time, working with some of the best, you know, Tony and Chet, all those people.

Like, what do you believe the impact of AI on the average coach today is going to be?

Massive.

Absolutely massive.

So I mentioned to you, I think, either privately or earlier on the show, now it's all a blur, I can't remember.

I have used AI to automate almost everything in my business.

And I mean, almost everything except the human contact.

That's mine.

I get to keep that.

That's the part I like.

But eventually, probably by next, by July, every element, including answering emails, unless of course it's personal or someone really reaches out to me, following up on leads, placing ads, managing budgets, managing SEO on my website, even my bookkeeping, and I'm not even done.

It's all gonna be AI.

It's mostly AI now.

Pretty soon, even my marketing videos will all be with my avatar, all on AI.

Why?

Because if you resist this, then you're gonna be spending money on low value things.

And you say, Well, Mitch, I mean, me being on video is high value.

No, it's not.

Your transformations are the only high thing, high value thing that you have.

Your wisdom is not your information.

Please write that down.

Your wisdom cannot be AI-ified, your information can be.

Look, I published five books.

I'm about to publish a six business book and a total of nine novels.

And I got to tell you, AI is going to pick that stuff up.

Great.

And I don't care.

You know why I don't care?

Because that's not me.

That's the information.

Sure, it's stuff I figured out.

But the bottom line is that most people can't implement.

So attention span has dropped, information has overloaded us, and true transformation comes from another human being pushing us beyond our boundaries, which is just what I did with you, Jason.

Yeah.

And that's the only way.

Well, you're exactly right.

I have breakfast every Wednesday morning with a very good friend of mine.

We're both entrepreneurs, business owners, and he dabbles in the coaching space as well.

And we were talking about this idea of AI

Replacing coaches.

And I think and I believe that the average coach will be replaced.

Average to lower end coaches are going to be because they're information brokers.

All they're doing is like we coaches used to be the keeper of secrets.

We're not the keeper of secrets anymore.

The secret's out.

You can get on clawed and figure it out on your own.

You don't need us.

But what you can't get is what you just said.

Information you can get.

Wisdom, you can't.

You can't get the wisdom.

You can't get the perspective of someone who's done it before and has the scars and the receipts to prove it.

You can't get the community.

Like all those things are why I believe coaching and masterminding will never end because you need it.

But if you can't build a coaching organization that provides that and you're just a dispenser of information, you're out of business.

Oh, you've been out of business.

I don't know a coach who's still in business.

That's all they did.

So I'll give you a quick example.

I told you earlier, I connected Google Console, Google Analytics, my backend of my website to Claude.

And Claude totally optimized my website, totally optimized my keywords.

He's now adding posts on my website every day for SEO.

And so I'm so proud of myself.

I got all these cool things going on.

And to this day, I don't even still know how to spell SEO.

But the bottom line is that it's all being done by AI.

So I mentioned this to a buddy of mine who's been an SEO expert for 30 years.

And I said to him, this is what I'm doing.

He says, oh, yeah, well, that's great.

Let me take a look.

And it took him five minutes.

He says, yeah, that's good.

It's probably what my junior people are doing for my entry level clients.

You want me to roll up my sleeves and see what I can really do?

I said, Sure, let me see.

Well, my mind was blown because that's the wisdom.

He says, Well, you see this, what Google, what Claude Code did, that's great.

Nothing wrong with that.

But that won't get you into the deep search.

That's what you really want.

You want the deep search.

You want the AI result search.

I said, Oh, yeah, but I already set that up.

I have...

No, no, no.

And it's stuff like that.

It's the wisdom that comes with the skills.

AI has the skills.

You have the wisdom.

Don't sell yourself short.

Instead, as a coach, put systems around your wisdom so they don't need you.

And frankly, that's the only way to fly if you're going to be successful going forward.

Yeah.

Coaches, there's a lot of wisdom right now, right here on this podcast.

Mitch has worked with the best, Tony and Chet.

What was it like working with those guys?

I mean, they're titans.

How did you get that introduction?

What was it like?

And I guess after you tell us that, I got a follow-up question about what they would think about this lie that we're talking about today.

But go ahead, tell us how you met them, how you started working with them.

Sure.

So I was running TimeSlips Corporation, which was my little startup software company at the age of 29.

I'd never had a business before, never started a business before.

And all of a sudden I had, at that time, I probably had 14, 15 employees, a million dollars in sales.

I had no idea what I was doing, Jason, not a clue.

I was terrified every day that any competitor can come along and steal my entire business just by looking at what we're doing.

So I figured instead I'd concentrate on making customers happy.

And I said, look, you could steal my tech, you can copy my stuff.

You could probably steal my accounts and duplicate all of my stuff, but you can't steal my relationships.

So what I ended up doing is building relationships early on.

With my best with my customers, which weren't that many at the time.

I remember when we finally built our certification program.

I had brought some of my customers on stage, and they told stories that almost made me cry, and I don't remember them.

Some of them was like, Mitch got on the phone and sold me my first copy of TimeSlips, and he worked with me and got my system up and running, and no other company's ever done that, and all this stuff.

I said, geez, I was just too afraid to lose him as a client.

I didn't know that was so special to that person, but it was, and that's where the learning comes, it's in all of that.

And so we got to the point where I started getting phone calls from big publications.

Now, remember, there was no internet, there was no Google, none of that stuff.

So I got a call from this absolutely obnoxious sales guy named Chet Holmes.

And he was trying to sell me pages in the magazine that he worked for.

And I said no a hundred times, but he was so persistent and he was like, I mean, at first he was a pain in the ***

But he impressed me with his persistence, with his ability to stay in rapport with me.

And then with his, he would send little things like gifts and he would fly down to see me and I was never, I told him I'm never gonna be a customer.

Bottom line, 18 months later, he signed me as a customer.

And that one moment in time became 40% of my revenue after that.

Those ads were so good,

And I had negotiated such a good deal that it built our business by 40% in the first year, just on the edge that Chet sold me.

And from there I bought more and I paid full price 'cause I didn't care.

And more importantly, we became friends.

And I mean, we became like more than friends.

We started hanging out with each other.

I tell them in advance what trade shows I'm going and you just get on a plane to hang out and have lunch with me.

That was the kind of friendship we had.

Back then when I was single, I'd go to Vegas, he'd show up and say, Come on, I have a strip bar I gotta show you.

It's really cool, you'll love it.

And I said, Nah, I don't know.

So we did all kinds of fun things together.

And then finally, after we got to the point where the certification program we built doubled the company in 18 months in terms of revenue.

And that's when Sage came along, saw what we were doing.

and made a Godfather deal.

And that was basically how I got to Texas.

But Chet and I stayed friends.

And after I sold the company, our friendship continued.

Then we'd have weekly calls and we got deep together as friends.

Until finally, he called and had a problem.

He said, Can you help me?

And I said, I would.

And so I helped them.

And he said, Okay, well, you did such a good job.

I want you to do this full time.

I said, Nah.

Forget it.

I'm not going to be an employee ever again for anybody.

And he said to me, well, I have a check sitting on my desk with your name on it.

I said, I told you I'm not agreeing to work for you.

What are you talking about?

And he said, yeah, but the salespeople that you brought into the company, your share is 18,000 in commission.

And remember, this is like 1980, I'm sorry, 2008 and 2009.

She goes, what do you want me to do with it?

She said, all right, you can send it.

And then he says, well, okay, well, you know, look, you're only working part-time, just keep doing it.

And I said, all right, I would.

Well, five months later, I became the president and ran his company.

Three months after that, he asked me if I would meet with him and Tony Robbins, and I said, I would.

And so we got on the phone with Tony Robbins, and you gotta imagine, like, I'm a guy who listened to his CDs in my car while on sales calls.

I mean, I adored Tony, I thought he was, you know, just the best.

To be on the phone with the Tony Robbins.

I thought it was such a big deal, but he's just a regular guy And then we all together the three of us decided to form a company and it was going to be an independent company He called it a division so that it had connected, you know, it had a connection back to his company RRI And then from there we scaled it and we scaled it to nearly 30 million

before Chet passed away.

But all in the five years it took to scale that company, Tony was genuine.

He was who he is.

He doesn't change who he is on stage or behind the scenes.

One personal story is that he always told me, no matter what event I'm doing, you're always invited, bring your family.

So I took him up on that and I brought my 15-year-old daughter.

to a fire walk to one of his events.

And I said to Tony, would you mind meeting us just to take a picture with my daughter and I?

Sure, just have my assistant set it up.

So it's now after the fire walk.

00 AM on the West Coast, and I'm on the East Coast, if you could tell how late that was.

And Tony meets us backstage on an empty stage, and he sat with my daughter and I for a half an hour asking questions about her.

That left such an impression on both of us that Tony had the care and the empathy to do that for my daughter is something neither of us will ever forget.

And he must have been as tired, as much more tired than we were.

He had just spent 14 hours on stage and he still took the time to do that.

That's the Tony Robbins that I know and love.

He's a beast, man.

I had the pleasure of meeting him.

I got a picture on my bookshelf over here behind me.

I only spent a couple of minutes with him.

But the genuine, what you're speaking, where he just looks deep into your soul.

He's like, he doesn't even know me.

Tell me more about you.

What do you do?

Tell me about your business.

What are you doing?

And he had just spent at that day, like 4 hours and 45 minutes on stage, was near the 14.

But yeah, amazing dude.

And the fact that you got to work with him is pretty cool.

So we got coaches that are listening to this.

And let's pretend for a minute that a coach is listening right now who's carrying a full roster of clients and a lot of them aren't really committed.

What's the cost for that coach staying in that lie?

And then of course, what opens up?

I know you said it was misery earlier, but like what opens up the day they decide to get ruthlessly selective about their clients?

So, I'm gonna take this conversation a little bit to a little bit different direction to answer your question.

Do you know that no matter what conversation you have with what person at any time ever in your life, that more than words are being transmitted across the spectrum?

Are you aware that the energy, your energy is what people see, feel and read unconsciously

in every conversation with you.

So here's the punchline.

They already know you're miserable.

They already know that you're sweating it out.

They know that you have to leave to get to the next call.

They know they're not getting your full attention or your best.

So what's that worth?

What's it worth to be the opposite of that?

To totally focus completely all of your energy, like you just described to me, like Tony does with you on a client,

What does it feel like to care about a person and have the desire to accelerate that individual, no matter what it takes, because they trusted you to do that?

How much do you care about what's going to happen to them after their contract runs out?

And if your answer is, well, they'll just get another contract, then you're in the wrong business.

Because this is a people business.

And without that connection, your coaching is short-lived.

It's gotta be.

So the cost is much deeper than money.

Sure, there may be a short-term blip where you're saving, where you may have to dip into savings.

And heck, if you don't have any savings, then what are you doing?

What are you doing?

Are you spending every penny and going into debt?

Please don't do that.

Trust me, it's the wrong path, particularly now.

Everything is getting more expensive.

You know that, I don't have to tell you that.

Save up, build the nest egg.

Use that next egg to reposition your life into the perfect life.

It doesn't mean in one moment in time you're going to go from not perfect to perfect.

It means you're on a journey.

Now look, I'm old, I've been on the journey.

I have the perfect life now and I'm super happy about it.

But it got it took a little longer, maybe longer than I would have liked, but I got here and I think you can too.

Well, Mitch, before we close, man, I want to give you one minute.

I'm not going to interrupt you.

I want you to tell the world as directly and as passionately as you can what the lie is and why they've been believing it and what the truth actually is.

Go.

It's very simple.

The lie is that quantity fills your wallet.

And that's the lie.

The truth is that quality fills your wallet.

That's the truth.

The quality of your relationships pays more dividends than any quantity of anything, money, clients, bookings, prospects can ever provide.

And if all you're focused on is the quantity, you never get to the quality.

So rethink your strategy, focus on quality,

Use your heart and feel into every relationship you have and ask yourself, is this the person that I can truly help?

And if the answer is no or maybe, pass.

If the question is a resounding yes, then engage that individual.

And here's the advice that maybe you didn't expect.

Sometimes the money is not the most important thing.

I've taken on clients and offered discounts

because I felt like the match was perfect.

And I really genuinely wanted to help them.

And I'm not giving my services away for free, that's not particularly smart, unless you're a beginner.

And you need to do that to get your base of testimonials in place first.

But as an experienced coach, you have perfected something very important.

You perfected a process, you've perfected, your wisdom has imbued your systems in a way that really makes them you.

And don't, those are not free and they're not cheap.

Let them be out there at their full value.

Now we offer a system for stuff like that, but we offer it at a price that anybody can afford because that's the on-ramp into a more prosperous life and a bigger coaching organization.

So Mitch, tell people how to find you.

Very simple.

Just go to MitchRusso.com and everything is right there.

MitchRusso.com.

That's R-U-S-S-O.

MitchRusso.com.

Final question, Mitch.

If somebody listening right now is still living inside that lie and they're still believing it, what's the one thing you want them to hear before we end today?

Just replay this interview again and again until it clicks.

Because if you're living that lie and during this interview, you did not feel something in your chest, in your heart, then you didn't listen closely enough.

But right now, the bottom line is that you're gonna burn out and you're gonna end up at a place where I did at one point where I said, you know what?

I don't even want the life I built.

And that's exactly what happened to me, Jason.

I got to a point where I said, you know what?

On the surface, I look successful.

I got a bunch of clients.

I got all this stuff going on.

I'm showing up on stages.

I'm showing up in summits.

I don't want that life.

I'm done.

And that's when the truth finally emerged in me.

And I knew what my true purpose was, and that's when I followed my heart.

So that's the answer.

Follow your heart, seek your own truth, and allow that guidance to take you where it's going to, even though you don't know what's behind that closed door yet.

That's the advice I would give.

Thank you, Mitch, for being here.

Appreciate your services over the years as one of my coaches and

Congratulations on the life that you've built and the success that you've enjoyed.

Thank you, Jason.

Well, that's a wrap on today's episode.

If today you saw a bar on your cage that you hadn't noticed before, send this episode to somebody who needs to see theirs, possibly a coach that you know.

Well, the gold is the lie.

And as always, I am your host, The Real Jason Duncan, and Jesus is King.

We'll see you next time.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode.

Remember, we release new episodes every single Monday, so make sure you tune in.

You can find all the show notes, everything from today's episode and more at the real Jason Duncan.com.

You'll find him there.

We'll see you next time on the Real Jason Duncan Podcast.