Graham Cochrane (00:04.182)
One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is copying what other successful people are doing. First of all, it assumes that those people are successful, but let's just assume that they are for the sake of argument. So they see someone launching a course, so we launch a course. Someone starts a mastermind, so we start a mastermind. Someone uses TikTok, so we use TikTok. Someone builds a funnel, so we build a funnel. But we rarely stop to ask a much more important question.
What are those people actually optimizing for? Another way to ask this is where does that path actually lead? So today, I want to share with you a powerful principle that explains why some people end up exactly where they want in life and others spend years walking the wrong path.
Graham Cochrane (01:57.518)
You see, most entrepreneurs aren't learning anything. They're copying what they see. And this has always happened. This will always happen. Whatever someone who's bigger or more successful or who seems to be where you want to be or have something you want to have does something new, it is almost instinctive to do it as well.
If everyone is doing short form video, then we're going to move to short form video. If someone successful is writing a book, then we're going to write a book. If the person you look up to is moving to this social media platform, you're going to move to that platform. If they change the language on their sales page to have this type of hook, you're going to have this type of hook. We just copy what we see. And there are so many problems with this. Number one is we don't know if it's working like I said at the top.
And that's a huge assumption we all forget to...
Graham Cochrane (03:09.186)
What I'm gonna teach you today is going to help you achieve whatever dream you have in your life. I don't know if it's that you wanna make consistent $100,000 months in your business, that's virtually all profit. I don't know if it's that you want to cut your work hours to 10 to 20 hours a week, like a lot of my clients. I don't know if it's that you want to be able to give millions of dollars away to your church or charity of choice or...
just have more time with your family to go on vacation. Like one of my buddies just texted me, like I'm at the peak of my career, but I just wish I had more time to take vacations with my family. Whatever it is you want, there is a way to get there. But you have to be incredibly intentional because if you are lazy, you're going to do what most people do, which is just copy what they see.
Graham Cochrane (04:03.79)
And the number one question I ask my clients when they ask me what to do is, what are you optimizing for? Because there's a lot of different answers I could give you. Are you optimizing for making as much money as possible without any writers or caveats or asterisks? Because there's ways to make as much money as possible, but you may not like those ways. There are gonna be consequences to some of those methods.
Right? So you gotta ask yourself, what are you optimizing for? So keep that question in the back of your mind at all times.
Graham Cochrane (05:12.184)
Then understand this, that what you're copying is largely a tactic, maybe a strategy, but it's rarely a principle. And those are three different levels of learning. I can teach you a tactic, what to do. Say this thing, push this button.
design your event in this way. Use this formula for your headline. I can tell you what to do. That's a tactic. But if you don't know when to do it,
That's the strategy. It's not gonna work for you. So strategies are more important than tactics. When do you implement these tactics versus these tactics? When do you pivot to these tactics? So understanding what to do and when to do it are two different things. And yet most people only see the what to do, the tactic. But even then you could understand a strategy. You could copy a strategy and still not be successful.
because you don't understand the third layer of learning right above that, which is principle. You don't understand why I'm using the strategy and why the strategy even works or why when it doesn't work, why it doesn't work. If you see someone doing something in business and you copy that tactic or strategy and then it doesn't work, you don't know why. Because you don't know why it was done in the first place. And then you're no better off than you were before.
This is why copying falls short. But friend, there's a much better way to have exactly what you want. And I want to share it with you today. If you crack open ancient texts, you're going to find wisdom that has lasted for thousands of years. This is why Stoicism has gained popularity in the last 10, 20 years and people are going back and reading these ancient writings because we're starting to get hip to the idea
Graham Cochrane (07:16.674)
that maybe, just maybe, the most successful people in life are the people that understand principles and wisdom, which is higher level thinking and learning, as opposed to just tactics and strategies. Well, the book that has the most wisdom in it is the book of Proverbs written by guy named King Solomon 3,000 years ago, okay? If you go to the chapter four of the book of Proverbs,
And you could read, there's 31 chapters in the book of Proverbs, fun fact. So you could read a chapter a day, every day of the month, and get through the book of Proverbs once a month, every month on repeat, and you will soak in the wisdom of what we know is the wisest king who ever lived, and arguably one of the wealthiest people who ever lived, if not the wealthiest people, if you adjust his gold and earnings for inflation. So if you want to learn...
from somebody learned from someone who was considered the wisest king who ever lived and the wealthiest king who ever lived. He says something profound in Proverbs 4.23, guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life. Chapter 4 verse 23, guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life. So where does your life come from? It comes from your heart. So what are you putting into your heart? What are you consuming? What are you listening to? What are you watching? What are you learning?
Who are you learning from? All these things matter. We'll get to that in a second. But what goes in is going to come out. Okay? But then he gives us this beautiful formula to have whatever you want in life. It's not by copying what you see. It's by having something deeper in your heart flow out. Check this out. Verse 25. This is what I love. Because I think that's the more famous verse. Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.
But two verses later, verse 25, Solomon says, look straight ahead and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet. Stay on the safe path. Verse 27, don't get sidetracked. Keep your feet from following evil. This is the wisdom and principles for success. So the outcomes you want in your business, if you want the next 12 months of your business to be 10 times more profitable than, like if you want to be making 10 times what you're making right now in the next 12 months,
Graham Cochrane (09:38.786)
This is for you. If you want 10 times more wealth in your bank account in the next 12 months, this is for you. If you want 10 times better relationships in the next 12 months, this is for you. If you want 10 times more peace in your life in the next 12 months, this is for you. Whatever you want in life, this is the way to get it. This is just pure wisdom. So there's three things that the Solomon's teaching us, and I'm going to speak to you as the entrepreneur or someone who wants to be an entrepreneur.
because that's who's on my heart today. But this would apply to all humans because all principles work for all people from all backgrounds at all times. If they don't, they're not a principle. Do you understand? So principles work no matter what. So the first thing we see in Proverbs 4.25 is to fix your focus. He says, look where? Look straight ahead. Fix your eyes on what lies before you.
You will not drift toward the outcome you want in life.
I've never met a single person drift towards a million dollar a year business. You can't. Certainly can't drift towards what I help my clients do, make $100,000 a month working 20 hours a week or less. That isn't the natural default if you just chill, you're not gonna get there. And yet that's what I help my clients do. You have to be intentional. What you drift towards is mediocrity, right? You drift towards average, you drift towards
whatever else is doing. If you don't define the future you want, the destination you want to arrive at, culture will define it for you. Your parents will define it for you. Your team will define it for you. YouTube will define it for you. Your favorite podcaster will define it for you. That TikTok influencer will define it for you. Do understand? If you don't define the destination that you want to arrive at, be incredibly specific, someone else will define it for you.
Graham Cochrane (11:42.252)
That's what's happening. That's what our schools are teaching. Our kids, that's what the workplace is teaching our kids, the media, the government. They all have a destination in mind for you. is to be complacent and compliant. It is to get in line. It is to pay your taxes. It is to not complain. It is to just accept the way things are. That does not have to be you. Okay? So people who build great businesses,
who have strong families, have meaningful lives, almost always have this in common. They have clarity about where they're going. Like, insane clarity. They may not know how to get there, that's not what I'm asking you to do right now. I'm just saying, do you have insane clarity on where you're going? Like, you've just decided. You've just decided.
Examples might be a business owner who knows exactly the type of company they want to build. In your finances, someone who has a clear financial vision, meaning I want to be debt free in the next 18 months, or I want to have a million dollars in my investments in the next three years, spitting off, you know, 4%, 5%, $50,000 a year in interest, right? This is my favorite. Entrepreneurs who want to make a certain amount of money, working a certain amount of hours.
So like I said earlier, you kind of caught some of that vision. I shared my vision from a lot of my clients. They come to me wanting this. I want to make at least $100,000 a month consistently every month, working 20 hours a week or less. Very specific, doing work that's meaningful and gives me a lot of joy. Now that's a beautiful vision, but that's very specific. Do you have insane clarity about where you want to go? If you don't, you ain't going to get there.
You're just gonna keep scrolling and scrolling and listening and listening and wondering why you're not where you wanna be. Maybe I should try that, maybe I should try that, maybe I should copy that, maybe I copy that. It's not gonna get you there. Because you haven't settled once and for all the destination. I mean, I think of the GPS. You get in your car, what's the first thing you do? These days it's not drive. You don't drive first. You enter the destination in your phone or your car, right? These days we like live off of our GPS's.
Graham Cochrane (13:55.874)
The beautiful thing about GPS is that then you don't have to think anymore. You don't have to guess. You just do what it says. We'll get to that in a second. You just do what it says and you arrive at your destination somehow on time every time. Once the destination is set, everything else becomes simple. So it would be incredibly foolish to get in your car and start driving around. If you wanted to come to my house and I told you I lived in Tampa, you'd be incredibly
foolish of you to start driving around without knowing my address. Let's say you wanted to come to my office. We're going to meet up and do a VIP day or something. You would still have to even look on your map where Tampa is. Now maybe you know it's in Florida, maybe you don't. But even if you know it's in Florida, do you know where in Florida? You just can start driving around the United States or you can start driving into the state of Florida. Florida is a huge state.
You need to know even where my city is. That has to be punched in. That could at least get you directly to my city. And then you still won't be able to find me unless I give you my exact address. But once you know the exact destination, the more specific, the more terrific.
everything else becomes easy.
So most people are living their lives driving before they ever start to punch in a destination, their GPS. Do you understand what I'm saying? And there's so many analogies that come out of this metaphor. They are exhausted, just like they're running their car into the ground. If you drove and drove and drove, like, I'm not there yet, because you don't know where you're going. They're running out of gas. This is why people are burned out.
Graham Cochrane (15:35.662)
And they're frustrated and they don't have peace in their life. When I punch in the destination of my GPS to go where I want to go in my car, I don't have to think about it anymore. Now I can talk to my wife or I can talk to my kids or I can listen to a podcast or an audio book or some music. I can just sit with my thoughts and I can be happy as a claim because I know I'm going to get there because I know exactly where I'm going. So before we move forward, do you have insane clarity about what reality you want to have true in the next 12 months?
I'm not talking about 12 years, I'm talking about 12 months from today. Whatever today's date is, 12 months from today to the day, what is the vision that needs to be true?
Habakkuk 2 tells us to write the vision and make it plain. Right? What needs to be true? What financial vision? Is it a certain amount of money in your bank account? Is it a certain amount of money coming into your business every single month on time consistently? Is it a certain number of hours you're working? Is it the type of clients? Do you want to fire your clients and have all new clients that you love working with? Did you know you can do that? Yes, you can.
What is the vision that you need to be a reality 12 months from now? You need to write that down. That is your first step. Okay, fix your focus. Once you know where you wanna go, do you understand how everything else becomes easier downstream? The moment you know exactly what outcome you need, now the next part of the formula becomes so clear.
because there are going to be certain strategies and tactics and principles that will get you to that vision versus other ones. So the second thing we see in Proverbs is mark out a straight path for your feet. Stay on the safe path. Once you know where you wanna go, the next question is simple. What is the best path that leads there? What is the straightest, clearest, shortest, fastest path to the outcome I desire?
Graham Cochrane (17:41.102)
People do the hardest thing. It's so funny to me. I'll have clients that want a very specific outcome, but then they make it so hard on themselves to get that outcome. So people try to invent the path for themselves. They're like, okay, Graham, I want to make a million dollars a year, so I'm going go try a bunch of stuff. Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. Why are you inventing a path? Like, this is what this inventing a path looks like. I'm going to bounce around random YouTube advice. I'm going to watch video after video. I'm going to read all these books.
I'm gonna look at what's trending, like what strategy is working right now. I know what's working right now in 2026 or whenever you're listening to this, right? What she looks smart, he looks intelligent. They're standing in front of a Lamborghini, what did they say? That seems to be working for them, right? We just chase and chase and look and look, but do you know what the fastest path is to the outcome you want in your life? Follow someone who's already done it.
Wait a second, find someone who's already gotten to where you want to go and follow the same path they went on.
problem with random YouTube advice, and I know this is coming from someone that's literally in a YouTube video right now, or podcast or whatever, however you're consuming this, the problem with just consuming a bunch of that and copying what you see and hoping it works is, A, you don't know where they've ended up. Unless they're very honest and specific about some of those destinations, you might have a clue, but you don't really know until you spend a little bit more time with them. That's why you want to spend some time to earn trust, to figure out, do I trust this person? Do I like...
not only where they've gone, specific outcome, but how they've gone there. And what does the rest of their life look like?
Graham Cochrane (19:27.63)
This is the most valuable work you could do is find the right mentor. Like when I want to do something, when I want an outcome in my life, I don't just invent a path to get there or try a bunch of stuff and see what works. It's already been done before. Everything you want to do in your life has already been done before. You want a great marriage? There is someone who's had a great marriage for the last 40, 50 years.
You want to make a million dollars a year working 20 hours a week or less, there is someone that's already figured out how to do that multiple times and help other people do it. How about you, You want to know how to buy multifamily real estate that's cash flowing and you don't have any money down? There are already people that have done that and could teach you how to do that.
Does this make sense? You want to be able to have great looking YouTube videos, great sounding YouTube videos. There are already people that have figured out what to do and have done that. You want to be a 10 % body fat or 8 % body fat. There are already people that have figured out how to do that. We don't need to guess. We don't need to try. What a waste of energy and time.
We just need to find someone who's done it. That's step one or qualifier one. Who's done the thing you want to do. Qualifier two, this is not mandatory. You can do whatever you want. You're a grown man, grown woman. But for me, qualifier number two is, what does the rest of that person's life look like? Because they might be able to make millions of dollars, but if they are divorced and their kids won't talk to them and they don't go to church and they don't take care of their bodies,
and they don't have any friends, like I don't want anything to do with that. Yes, they could probably show me how to get to where they are, but I don't actually want to be where they are holistically. I just want one sliver of what they have. And that's up to you whether you care about that or not. But if you're going down the shopping aisle of mentors on the shelf, imagine you're in a grocery store and like just like you've got cereal boxes or a bajillion crest toothpastes, right? You can pick the toothpaste or the cereal box you want. You can pick the mentor you want.
Graham Cochrane (21:41.75)
And so you might look at a box and say, wow, I like that box. I'm going to pull it off. But then read the rest of the ingredients in the box. Right? So you might see a mentor who's done what you want to do. wow. She's built a great business. She's in great shape. He's got a $10 million net worth. He looks super happy and calm. Great. Pull the box down. Look closer. Do you like everything else you see?
He could help me become a bestselling author, but he's on his third marriage and this one's on the way out. I don't know if I really want to implement his line of thinking if it costs me my marriage. I'm not saying those things are related, but there is a clue, right? Success and failure leaves clues. she's 10 % body fat, but it looks like she's really actually not healthy. And there's other things that are very questionable about that. So I know she could help me get thin.
and get lean, but actually don't think she's super healthy in these other areas. Again, we're not judging people, but you get to choose your mentor, so choose wisely. Mentorship is the shortcut to wherever you want to go. And when I say mentorship, it could be books, friend. You can just pick up someone's book. Some of my best thoughts are in my books, right? So that's why I read books. It could be someone who's dead. You can get mentorship from someone who's dead.
That's what the Bible is. I'm getting mentored by King Solomon, Jesus, Moses, Abraham. Brilliant people. They're dead. I'm never going to able to hang out with them until I get to heaven. And yet, I can sit under their mentorship because they wrote a book. That's why books matter. This is why coaching matters. Coaching is so important. You can look at what someone does, but until you understand why they do it,
the psychology behind it, the principle behind it, you'll never be successful with it. So don't just mimic what you see someone doing, even if it's a coach you respect, go hire that person, sit under their teaching for at least a year, model their thinking, model their mindset, model their principles, and mold it to your own life. This is the fastest path to the outcome you want. Remember, you have a clear vision now, you fixed your focus on the...
Graham Cochrane (24:05.346)
where you really wanna be, this is the fastest, straightest path to do it. My family and I like hiking. And by hiking, I mean we like to walk uphill, okay? I'm not like rock climbing, but we like hiking. It's a little bit of a challenge. We love the time to talk and be in nature and be outside. We like the snacks and we like the payoff at the end when you get the beautiful view, right? It's great family time.
When we go hiking, here's what we don't do. Let's just get up that mountain and find a way up there. That's a, I know I'm gonna die. Like I'm not gonna make it back. I'm not Woodsy. I can't build a fire. I can't forge for food. Like I wanna make it up, guaranteed, and then I wanna make it back for dinner and cocktail hour, right? Like, so you could just blaze your own trail up a mountain, but why do that when the risk is really high and it's
It's a giant waste of time because someone else has already beat down a path. There's already people, I get on Alltrails, the app, and I say, what's the best path up this mountain? and it tells me exactly where the trailhead is, start here, and it tells me where to turn. And sometimes the trail isn't super clear. So the Alltrails app is so helpful to be like, this kind of looks like a trail, but really it's here. I just follow the trail. Someone's already mapped out for me. This, the established trail is safer.
It's clearer, it's faster, it avoids cliffs that you might fall off, it avoids dead ends that are just frustrating.
Trying to invent your own route might feel fun or independent or smart or creative, but it's just slow. At best it's slow, at worst you'll fall off the cliff. And I see this time and time and again with entrepreneurs that just keep bumping into dead end after dead end. if you're resilient, you'll keep going. If you're stubborn enough to keep going, you'll keep going for a time, but eventually you'll hit a wall and you're like, this is so frustrating, I'm gonna quit. When you're on the right mountain,
Graham Cochrane (26:12.054)
You just aren't following a beat down straight path. Literally, he tells us, Solomon tells us, mark out a straight path for your feet. Don't even do a curved path. Like if there's a straight path you can follow, do that. Mentorship collapse timeframes and it avoids all the pitfalls. Does this make sense? Okay. If you know where you want to go.
You fixed your focus on the future. You're looking at what lies ahead only. You're not looking down at all the distractions or all the naysayers or all the people. You're like, I wanna go here. And now you have a straight path, a clear path, because you have mentorship. I know exactly what play to run and why I'm running. I know exactly what principles to implement, So now you have the path. You're like so close. You're like 90 % of the way to the outcome you want guaranteed. But this is where people...
Miss it like I've had a coaches before I've had mentorship before and it didn't work either you chose the wrong mentor which is a possibility and I've done that too or you miss point three that's in our passage here verse 27 don't get sidetracked keep your feet from following evil some translations say do not turn to the left or the right this is where most people fail
They don't fail because the path doesn't work. They fail because they leave the path too soon. They leave the path, right? They get distracted. well, look what she said. Look what he said. look what's happening right now. Well, that's cool. Maybe we should jump on that.
They get impatient. it's not working fast enough for me. Good things take time. Now, a good mentor will get you there a lot faster than you can get there on your own, but some good things take time. They chase shiny objects. They listen to too many voices. One week it's this strategy, another week it's this strategy. That is not the path's fault. That is user error. That is your fault.
Graham Cochrane (28:15.534)
Pro tip, if you are going to, this is one reason why I really recommend raising your prices. Just side note, you're now the coach. If you're a coach, this is one reason why I recommend raising your price. This is why I charge $250,000 for private one-on-one coaching, or $55,000 for my inner circle or whatever. The reason I charge what I charge is two reasons. One, it's worth easily 10 times the price. I know.
that people who join my inner circle at $55,000 are going to make easily $550,000 in the next 12 months working with me easily. That's like a very safe play. I just am very generous with my prices is one tenth of the value you're going to get in the first 12 months of working with me. And then you get to run those plays forever, over and over again. Okay. Like one of my clients who's been in the inner circle for five months now.
went from $30,000 a month to consistent $100,000 months, his best month $250,000.
This is what happens. I know how to get that result. That's one reason why I charge a lot. But the other reason why I charge a lot is, and why you should charge a lot, is when people pay you a lot of money, you take them off the market.
Like, I wanna take my clients off the market. Meaning, if they invest $55,000 with me or $250,000 with me or $25,000 with me or whatever they invest with me, I know it's a certain, it's a large enough sum of money that they are likely not gonna hire another coach, at least in the next 12 months. And the reason why I want them to be off the market as it were and be only mine for the next 12 months is because it's the best thing for them.
Graham Cochrane (30:01.954)
I'm not saying I'm the best coach or the only coach. I'm saying for the next 12 months, if you're going to win, you need to get on my path and I have a path to $100,000 a month, 20 hours a week or less. I have a very clear beaten down path. I take people up that mountain all the time. If you're gonna get those results and you're gonna be on my path, I want you to stay on my path. I want you to have no more money available to go, well, what about what she says?
Do that next year or do that whatever, or whatever. If you're gonna hire me, just work with me, bro, so that you get results and you win. Otherwise, why invest? Why invest if you're not going to implement what you invested in? Do you understand what I'm saying?
This is so, the wisdom that Solomon has that he even has to say this, look straight ahead, fix your eyes on what lies before you. That's fixing your focus. Mark out a straight path for your feet. This is so smart. Don't have a winding path. Just get the straightest path. And he starts to say, stay on the safe path. Don't get sidetracked. Keep your feet from following evil. I know that this passage is about how to live a godly, wise life.
Do you see how the application to entrepreneurship is just so glaring you can't miss it? There are multiple paths to get what you want. I'm not saying I have the best path or whatever you want, but find a path, find a mentorship and stay on the path. If you stay on the path long enough, the path will work for you.
Does this make sense? The path isn't the problem if you're not getting the results. It's user error. You got off the path somewhere. Stay on the path. Paul talks about this. He also Paul later in the book of Galatians, he writes, do not grow weary in doing good for at the proper time you will reap a harvest if you do not give up. So this whole thing, this is point three, is fight the drift. If you fix your focus,
Graham Cochrane (32:14.498)
You found the path. Then you fight the drift because the drift is coming. The drift is default human behavior, life distractions, shiny objects, doubt. External circumstances, the news, your kids, your spouse, your inner critic, all of it wants you to drift and you will not win if you drift. You have to fight to stay.
on the path.
Graham Cochrane (32:57.878)
Even earlier in Galatians 6 verse 4, Paul says, careful attention to your own work, the job you're doing, the path you're on, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done and you won't need to compare yourself to anyone else. Listen, when my clients come into my world, I almost want them to create an alternate reality where for the next 12 months, we are going to not only transform your business, we're going to transform you and your life. But only if you block out all distractions, you sit under my feet,
As your mentor, I'm not a god, I'm just a guy. I am a guide who's been to the top of the mountain that you wanna go to the top of, multiple times myself, and I've taken hundreds of people up there with me, probably thousands at this point, because there's people that will run my place I didn't even get a chance to work with, didn't even pay me anything.
Graham Cochrane (33:49.688)
So I say come into my world for 12 months, sit at my feet, soak up everything, model my thinking, model my behavior, model my principles, run the play, stay on the path, ignore what everyone else is doing for 12 months, do not compare yourself even to other clients in my programs, do not compare yourself to me, run your race, run the path, you will get the result you want.
Graham Cochrane (34:23.938)
And you're going to drift. This is just physics, Like an airplane flying from Los Angeles to New York, let's say, they're crossing the whole continental US. They punch in a destination. They know where they're going and they have the clearest air path to get there. But there's constant wind and there's constant weather and there's constant things pulling it, drifting it. And so the plane has to just correct.
Like that's natural. You're gonna be pulled off. It's fighting to stay on course. That's the hardest work you'll ever do. After deciding what you want, fixing your focus, finding the right path and mentorship, the last hardest thing you'll ever do before you become successful and have the breakthrough you want is fighting the drift and just correcting. Little corrections every single day. Just stay on the path, stay on the path, stay on the path. It's just small corrections. But if you don't correct it quickly, you get way off course real fast. Does that make sense? And then you're like, how did I get here?
How did I get here?
So I don't know what you want in the next 12 months in your business or your life, but I do know how to get it.
You need to fix your focus absolutely clearly on what it looks like. I'm all for vision boarding. I'm all for journaling what you want. I'm all for putting it on an index card or post it notes or telling the world publicly, however you want to do it. That's all great. And the more specific, the more terrific. But remember, that's just the start. How are you going to get there? It's not just going to happen magically. You're not just going to attract it magically.
Graham Cochrane (36:03.372)
No, the shortest, safest, clearest path to the destination you want is to find a mentor who's been there, who can take you up the mountain with them. So that's the second thing. And the third thing is fight the drift. Because you're going to buy default drift. and I, we've been married 20 years. It's amazing. She's an incredible woman. And I would say we've had a great marriage. Not a perfect marriage, but a great marriage the whole way.
The last three years I noticed and she noticed, feels like we have more conflict than we had in the first 17 years. And there's nothing really major going on. just, I don't know, we're just getting tired. I don't know if it's because we got teenagers now. I don't know what it is, but there's probably something we don't know that someone else knows that can help us ensure that we don't drift off a good marriage. And in fact,
We're not even at the marriage that we want. Like we want the best marriage on the planet. So we're not gonna drift into that. So we've had counseling and marriage coaching in the past, but we got really serious last fall. like, we need to find someone who is exactly where we wanna be, who can give us the shortest, fastest path there. Because the vision we had, the focus we have is we're going to grow old together.
We don't even discuss divorce to the D-Word. It's not even an option. There's no backdoor, right? But not only are we not going to get divorced, that's like base level, that's not even winning. We want to be more in love at age 95 when we're old, 95. Because I don't think you're old until you're 95. No offense. If you're 95, I think you can, that's legitimately old. I think that's okay. Up until 95, you're young, all right? 94, you're young. 95, you're old, right? Our vision is we're 95.
We still go out on dates. We hang out with the... We want to be with each other more than anybody else. And we do everything together. We're laughing. We're in love. We encourage each other. We teach each other, like, about God and we encourage each other in our faith. We're still attracted to each other physically. We serve each other. We have a very specific vision of what we want to be true at age 95. Okay, that's great. Fixed our focus. How are we going to get there?
Graham Cochrane (38:28.184)
Find the path. So you know what we did? We hired one of the best marriage coaches on the planet. He helps NFL couples and MLB couples and CEOs. He's been married for I think about 40 years. His adult children love him, work with him, talk to him. Like his family is intact. He's kind. He's at peace. People trust him implicitly because he
is a safe place and he has what we want. And so I invest in coaching. Last year I spent over half a million dollars, half a million dollars on coaching in one year. He was one of my coaches and still is. Because even though our marriage is good to get where we want to go, I want the shortest path. I want to avoid all the pitfalls and all the landmines. And so we hired him and we sit under his feet and like we're off the market. I don't have any other marriage coaches.
He's got my money. He's got a lot of it. He's worth every penny. I've learned so much because he has seen it all himself and with his clients. And so he asks questions no one else is asking. And he says things that no one else is saying. They get shamed out of go, wow, this is actually the thing beneath the thing beneath the thing. He's like a wizard. Right. I know my marriage is going to be better because of it. When I wanted to hit a bestseller list with my book, Rebel,
I didn't just guess how to hit a bestseller. I tried to do that with my first book. I just guessed. I watched some YouTube videos. Didn't work, by the way. So the second time around, I was like, who's the best? Rory Vaden from Brand Builders Group. So I hired him. I hired him personally. I joined his program. I hired his team for two-day intensives. I gave Rory and AJ, she's amazing, I gave them a ton of my money.
They have the path. They've gone up there a bunch of times. They've gotten everyone up there. Amy Porterfield, Ed Mylett, Louis Howells. I mean, they've gotten everybody on the bestseller lists. New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal. That's what they do. I had that vision, hit a bestseller list for my book. So I hired the mentors, got the straightest path, and then I ran their play for five months and did everything they said. And guess what? Rebel hit USA Today bestseller list. It works. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing?
Graham Cochrane (40:54.454)
I know this is simple, but can I just encourage you, stop copying what you see other people doing. That's tactics, strategy maybe if you're lucky, and you don't even know if it's working. Decide where you want to go, what you want to optimize for. Find a mentor to sit under his or her feet to get the shortest, safest, clearest path to get there, and then stay on the freaking path. Run the play. Learn. Implement.
and watch your life change. I hope this blessed you today. I hope this helped you today. Keep doing what you're doing. You're closer than you think. You can have a completely different life in the next 12 months. I'll see you another episode real soon.
