Adam Roach is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of I Love Coaching Co. Whether it’s shutting his laptop at 6pm, to creating a daily $1,000 accountability motivator, Adam has a unique perspective based on his coaching business and entrepreneurial experience working with a variety of people and types of companies.

Whether it was immediately exiting partnerships when Adam realized he was working with the wrong people to a golf cart meets mailbox parenting fiasco, there are lessons throughout this podcast for business owners at every stage. 

Join Adam and Jim as they discuss a myriad of topics from faith and ego to accountability, work-life balance and sticking to your word. 

3 Key Takeaways

• Create accountability: Maybe not for everyone, but Adam has a system where he has an accountability partner he texts everyday what he’s going to accomplish that day. If he doesn’t accomplish it, he Venmo's $1000 to his partner (it’s happened 12 times in 7 years if you’re wondering). 

• Identify your who’s: Who are the people you want to work with? If those aren’t the people you’re working with today, it’s time to figure out an exit path. 

• Go grow: “If I don’t better myself, my fear is that my past will repeat itself.” 🎤 drop 

Resources

www.ilovecoachingco.com

About Our Guest 

Adam has been a serial entrepreneur and a student of coaching for over two decades. From playing collegiate tennis, to owning his first tennis club in his 20's, Adam built one of the most dynamic tennis club's in Beverly Hills, CA. He later cut his real estate investing teeth in Los Angeles, with 6 and 7 figure flips and holds. In his mid 30's, Adam transitioned to owning and running 3 Keller Williams Realty franchises in SC. He developed and led a team that grew the offices from 120 agents to nearly 800 agents in 4 years. In 2018 his offices were selling $2billion in volume and sharing profits back to the agents in excess of $600k annually. As he sold his franchises in his early 40's, Adam turned his focus to building a whole life coaching company that would impact the masses through his proprietary R.E.A.L. coaching model. In 2019, The I Love Coaching Co. brand was created. To-date that company has hundreds of coaches and clients all over the globe, along with his recruiting softwares that have recruited over 130,000 real estate agents in North America. In addition to that, Adam hosts a weekly podcast (I Love Coaching Podcast), invests in multi-family real estate, plays tennis with his kids, and loves family weekends on the boat in Charleston, SC. 

About The Dirt Podcast 

The Dirt is about getting real with businesses about the true state of their companies and going clear down to the dirt in solving their core needs as a business. Dive deep with your host Jim Barnish as we uncover The Dirt with some of the world's leading brands.

If you love what you are getting out of our show please subscribe.

For more information on how we dig into the dirt check out our other episodes here: https://www.orchid.black/podcast

About Our Company

Orchid Black is a new kind of growth services firm. We partner with tech-forward companies to build smarter, better, game-changing businesses. 

Website: https://www.orchid.black 

Jim Barnish’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grow-smart-grow-fast/ 

Orchid Black’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/orchidblack/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@OrchidBlack 

All contents of this show are rights of Orchid Black©️ and are not to be used unless authorized by written consent.

All right, Adam, welcome to the dirt. Yeah, man, it's good to have you here. So tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and why we should all listen in intently.

Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it. Let's go.

Listen man, I'm just a bald guy who lives in the low country of Charleston, South Carolina, and whether you listen to me or not, that's your choice, right? I can tell you where I failed, I can tell you where I've had some successes, and at the end of the day, I'm just blessed to honestly be here and giving, I mean, I'm a spiritual guy, so I give all the thanks to God. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, man, me too, me too. You know, before the show started, we were talking a little bit about faith and faith-driven purpose, and I'm a new dad. You've been a dad for a while. You were both faith-driven guys. How do you balance it all?

Mm-hmm.

That's a great question. I don't know if you ever balance anything, Jim. I really don't believe there is a balance. I think that you're, okay, let me just, everything I'm saying is me, right? So I'm not a master in any of this. I have just failed so many times in so many different ways. I've been married twice, have two amazing kids, have lost a shitload of money, excuse me, have lost a lot of money and have made a lot of money.

have great investments, have had bad investments. So the balance is, I don't think there's ever a balance, man. I think it's a counterbalance. I think you're constantly counterbalancing. So we were talking a little bit beforehand. You have a new child, mine are 15 and 13. And I was a professional tennis player, taught tennis for a long time in SoCal. And both my kids go to a tennis academy here in Charleston.

And every day for the last seven years, I've had one accountability partner. And now I have, I don't know, gosh, I honestly don't know how many I text this to every single day. I could probably go back eight, nine, 10, 11, and then two groups, so about 13 people every morning. I text them my top five things that I have to knock out for the day that are truly my 20%.

Everything else doesn't matter. And I need to knock these things out. My one guy that I have accountability with, if I don't knock these things out, I owe him a thousand dollars for the day. And Jim, one of the things that I always end with, whether it's one through three or one through five, is one of two things. It is go to my kid's tennis academy by five o'clock, because they finish at six, and be totally unplugged. No phone. The phone stays in the truck, and it's just me and the dog.

and we're walking around the academy watching the kids. Now, I'm not necessarily with them at that moment in time, but they can see me. And that's just my time with them. And then I pick them up, we come home, we have dinner, we have hot tub nights, right? We sit in the hot tub, we engage that way. But I don't take my computer home, right? My phone goes, you know, we've got work mode, sleep mode. I've got home mode, right? And I've got it set to a certain time. If you get me after like six o'clock, ain't no, I'm not replying, right? So anyway, so that's how I...

counterbalance all day long. So it's either five o'clock with the kids or it's a specific time that I'm home with my wife. And I'm done. I'm done.

$1,000 for not hitting the goals. How many times you had to do that?

Well, probably at least in the last seven years, probably at least a dozen.

That's an expensive lesson. That's the best lessons are the expensive ones. You don't make that mistake too many times.

Yes.

Yeah. Well, here's what we know, Jim. We will lie to ourselves. Okay, again, coming back to Adam Roach, this is just me talking about myself. I can lie to myself. I can BS with myself all day long, right? But if I tell someone that I'm gonna do something, my dad, who was Olympic swim coach, nailed this into my head and he said, "'Adam, the only superpower that you have is your word.'" Right? That's the only superpower you have. And he taught me this definition of commitment, right?

And he said, Adam, commitment is doing the thing you said you would do long after the original mood you set it in had left you. I was like, dad, I gotta write that down because I really don't understand that. And to this day, I really comprehend that it's seven years, been sending this accountability, staying in line with whatever I was supposed to do for the day and committing to it. Now, there will be days, instead of me sending a check mark next to it, I put the red X, the Venmo goes out, and I move on.

Yeah. That's great.

Right?

but only 12 and seven years, not too bad. And I know you know that number, I know it's not 11 or 13. So, you know, it comes down to purpose and intention rather than balance is a lot of what I'm hearing, right? And so whether it's, you know, let's switch the gears to the other entrepreneurs that you work with.

Only 12 in seven years, yeah, not bad. Yeah, you could have bought a cheap used car for that, right? No, it's 12. It is 12.

Yeah.

You know, how do you, how do you advise them or coach them on being intentional with their time and striking this counterbalance, if you will, between business and personal life.

Let's go back to it. Because I believe the people who are not, we'll use the word balance, right? We'll use the word balance. I believe the people who do not have balance in their life have no clarity on their vision. Right, they are not clear on what is important to them, specific to where they are growing to. And here's what I mean. Whether it's my coaches that I'm coaching, whether it's my clients that I'm coaching, whether it's my kids that I'm playing with, I'll give an example of an interesting one here.

So my daughter is 13 and she'd had the same pro since she was nine years old and really just loved him to death. I mean, she didn't know any different, right? And he's retiring. And this just happened this week, he's retiring. Wonderful man, wonderful tennis pro, very knowledgeable. And she was emotionally upset when she heard of his retirement. And so that night,

was talking to her in her room, and she starts crying big time. And again, when your daughter cries, for those that have daughters, dad, you know what that feels like. It's like you're ready to go, you're ready to unleash some fury on somebody, but that wasn't the case here. And so I said, help me understand, what's the most, what are you feeling right now? What is the sadness you're feeling? And she said, dad, he said he was gonna be with me all the way through my UCLA career.

He said that he was gonna be with me in my box when I played at the US Open. He said that we were gonna play mixed doubles at all of the Grand Slam tournaments. So as I'm listening to her, I'm thinking, how amazing is that? Here's a coach that had instilled in a nine-year-old, now 13, such a hardcore vision that she knew where she was going to, right?

and she was more upset that she didn't think he was gonna be with her when she achieved those things. Right? So what's really neat about that is, I said, here's the thing you get to do, sweetie, is when you do make it to the US Open or any Grand Slam, you can call him up and you can say, hey, I got a ticket for you to come into my box. But my point in saying all that, Jim, is the people who, in my opinion, don't have that balance, don't have a clear, don't have clarity on their vision.

Yeah.

They really don't know what to say no to, and they probably say yes to way too many things. So my daughter, if she got invited to go, I don't know, play hockey, she would say no, because that's not in alignment with her getting to UCLA, her getting to the US Open. Now that was an exaggeration there of tennis and hockey, but at the same time, it's knowing what to say yes to and knowing what to say no to, and knowing that you're saying yes to something, you're probably saying no to something else, and if it's not, I always use this. So,

I always say for those that can watch us, this hand, right, your hand is a vision. This is your vision. Now there's a difference between vision and goals, but this is your vision. And over here is the world, right? This is the path, this is distractions, this is your 20%, this is your 80%. And whatever comes into your world, if it's aligned like this, say yes. If it's not aligned, you get to say no, right? But if you don't have clarity, your world's going to feel not balanced.

Yeah. And take that hand and make it four dimensional, right? I mean, it's, you know, it's, uh, I love this, uh, the concept of, of Ica guy. Are you, are you familiar?

Briefly, but not much.

So, you know, aligning, you know, what you're great at, what the world needs, what you like to do and what you can get paid to do. And if all four of those can align, it's this Japanese concept of Ikegai. There's a lot of books written about it. A lot of, a lot of things written about it, but, um, you know, really finding that for somebody is so, is so rare. Like if meeting all four of those potential, uh, you know, paths in your life and doing, doing what you love. Right. And having.

That's good.

It'd be what the world needs and getting paid to do it and being really good at it. Cause we all want to be really good at what we do. And I think that applies to personal and business. So, you know, it's.

Well, so one thing, Jim, I'll tell you, so stay in the Japanese space, I think this is Japanese, I don't know, Misogi, have you heard of a Misogi? So Misogi, where was I when I heard of this? I was at a group I belonged to called Go Buttons. I was a founding member back in 2014 of this group. And Jesse Itzler was amongst us and we were having this conversation. He says, you know, I...

No.

I think he shared this on some YouTubes or podcasts or something, but he was talking about his annual Misogi. It's a challenge that you set for yourself, that you have no clear path on how to. I think one of his was like an ultra marathon or something, or up a mountain, or I don't remember what it was. And so everything else is blurry because there's your path, right?

Yeah.

And so I attempted, and I say that because I have failed, a misogi this year, and it was, I'm a health guy as well, both mental, physical, and emotional, to do a pushup and a crunch for each day of the year. So today was day 293, yesterday was 292, 291, so each day I had to do that many pushups and crunches. And I have a,

a doctor that is, we're like bros, and I was telling him about this, and he's like, listen, let me ask you a question. If I told you to stop, would you? I said, it depends on the reason why you told me to stop. And he says, because if you destroy your shoulders, is it worth it for the year after? I was like, probably not. And he said, okay, fine. So I did tweak my left shoulder on day 271, and I have since slowed down a little bit, so I did miss some days after day 271, though I did do 293 today.

But that's a misogi, right? And it kind of goes back to what we're talking about with balance. I know that that's what I have committed to, right? That's what I had committed to. When I injured myself, I felt like shit because I lost my commitment, right? So I told myself in my accountability group that I would do that many crunches or that many air squats. No way could I want to do that many air squats.

No kidding.

So a misogi is a really, for your listeners, go look up that word and see if you can create a misogi. If you don't have crystal clarity on your vision, create a one action or create something that gives you purpose and direction that maybe scares you. See what comes on the other side of that.

Yes, that's great. I love that concept. I do these 75 or 100 day challenges. A 365 connected to the general vision that seems unachievable sounds like the next jump. That's awesome. So we mentioned faith earlier, right? And how faith has kind of been this pivotal factor

Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, it's fun.

in your life, is there any point of transformation where faith, whether it's your own life or someone else in your life's transformation, is there some instance that just points out just this transformation around faith and how that affected their life?

Mm-hmm.

So I'm a Midwest boy at heart, born and raised in Indiana, good Catholic boy. I don't know if you can put good and Catholic boy together. I mean, we were never good Catholic boys, right? Yeah, raised Catholic, right? And I'll tell you, growing up, mom and dad, well, not dad, dad has passed. Mom, if you're listening to this, which you probably aren't, I was scared to death of God.

You and me both, brother. Wisconsin over here. Ha ha.

I was scared. If I got in trouble, I had to go to confession. And I hated sitting in that little room. I hated that little slide door opening up. I knew my priest was on the other side, but I was scared of him too, right? So there was a lot of fear as a child around faith. It's funny because we've got a really fun garden in our home. And Dana, my wife, brought home a statue of Jesus, right? And it's the one where

He's pointing to his heart for something like that. And I said, honey, that statue scares me. I'm gonna tell you why. Because when I was a kid, I was sitting in the Catholic church, I saw that in the stained glass window and I thought his heart was exploding all day every day. So anyway, fast forward now, then I go to SoCal, right? So I'm playing professional tennis. Last little challenger that I was playing was in Southern California. Find out real quick, I was an American, not a European, and get my butt kicked on this pseudo tour that I called. And I got into the tennis business out there.

and two of my tennis business partners were Jewish. And so one of them was actually a cantor, which is a singing rabbi basically. And I had stepped away from the Catholic church and as fast as I could when I was able to drive. And I started going to temple with this rabbi. And all my clients for the most part were Jewish in Beverly Hills.

and some were Iranian, so Farsi and Persian, and those types of things. And so I got to learn a little bit more about that culture and really kind of immersed myself. And what I learned about that, from my opinion, was that it was a very family-first religion. Very family-first. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Nothing else really matters outside of, if you need to take care of your family first, no one else matters on the outside, but if your family's taken care of, you can take care of other people on the outside.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, so now fast forward, now I live in Charleston, South Carolina. I'm in the deep South, right? And, whew, Christianity's everywhere here, not to mention Southern Baptist and all those types of things. So I've now stepped into the Christianity space simply because I was at an event one time. And if your listeners are familiar with John Maxwell, it was a John Maxwell event, and he's a former pastor, also a writer of the leadership space, in the leadership space.

And I got to meeting him personally, and he said, if anybody's having a new walk with Christ, come have a conversation with me. So I did, went up and started talking to him. He's like, give me, now we didn't know each other really well at the time. He said, well Adam, give me your phone number and I'll call you, and we'll have a conversation on this. I'm thinking, here's a global leader in leadership and he wants my phone number. He's not gonna call me. Sure enough, he calls me, and.

And I didn't know the number that was calling me. So I let it go to voicemail. John Maxwell left me a voicemail. I thought, oh my gosh, what an idiot. So I called him back, he didn't answer. And then he finally called me back about three or four weeks later. And we had this really amazing conversation about Christianity. And so that was probably seven or eight years ago. And since then, I like to tell people, I've got all my bases covered from Catholicism to Judaism to Christianity now. And so here's something that I've started doing, Jim.

Hmm.

Every morning when I go on my walks, I read a devotional. I read a devotional on my phone, phone goes away, and then I meditate. And after I walk to the gym and then walk home, do my pushups, I pray out loud. And then when I get home, I then read in a book, a devotional. So I fill my morning with giving my thoughts to God, giving my energy to Him.

And this is just Adam Roach talking, and I'm not a master in this space. What I've found is it just really fills me up in that space. And I've got on my computer right here, if you have time to worry, you have time to pray, right? It's, this isn't ours. None of this is ours, right, in my mind. None of this is mine. I've been blessed to have all of these opportunities. And I give God credit to everything. So...

Man, that's been my walk and it's been amazing over the last 20 plus years.

You should check out this, uh, this company called pray.com that we just started working with. It's pretty, pretty awesome. I'll send you a link. Um, but you know, not, not to, not to go too far down the faith route, but also intentionally to go a little bit further down the faith route. Um, the, um, I've noticed the same thing, you know, my, my journey with, with being a Catholic and then maybe not losing my way, but definitely losing interest, uh, in, in faith.

Mm-hmm.

and then finding it through some meditation and then spirituality and then, you know, eventually getting back into you know, the Christian Religion I never I never was lucky enough to also have a about with Judaism But I do have a lot of a lot

I'll tell you the first brisk that I went to, man, that was a wild experience. I'll tell you what, snip, and then everyone says, turn around, let's eat. I was like, whoa, I don't know if I can eat after watching that.

Let me tell you, after just having my son circumcised a few days ago, no thank you. That's and that's a baby.

Yeah, I know. They turn this into a party. In fact, this isn't a party. This is, how do you eat after that? So I started eating it raw.

No, it's very, very relevant. But, you know, there's, there's this element of filling, of filling your day and getting a different level of, you know, not starting the day with you, but starting the day with God that has been a game changer for me, right? And, and I wouldn't say my journey is complete in terms of entirely letting him drive my life forward. I've got

Yeah.

Yes.

A lot of ego things and stuff like that, that I'm still working through. But, um, but it's man, it's been a game changer. Just, just the, just the tiny part of my journey that I feel like is, uh, transitioned effectively. Um, and you know, egos are something that gets in everyone's way from what I've seen, right? And it's a matter of where you are in dealing with that ego and how much you let it control your life or how much you let yourself

Mm-hmm.

be the focus of your life versus, you know, letting God or something drive you that's bigger than you, right? And

Well, I'm sure you've heard the acronym of ego as edging got out, right?

I know I actually have never heard that. No, that's wonderful though. That's as that, I mean, that's perf that's perfect. That's exactly what it is.

Yeah.

Well, you know, it's interesting, Jim, when we create the I love coaching company, very similar to that acronym. I, so I created this process, right? Of what I call a real coach, R E A L, right? And stands for relevant, experiential, authentic leader is what real stands for.

And a leader is someone that influences, right? And then what does influence mean? Influence means take action. So what's really powerful about that is, none of it, in my opinion now, none of it's ours anyway, right? None of this is ours. So we have to give credit for being relevant, right? For our experiences. Authentic, man, if you're in a space of not being authentic, you have mass.

insecurities right and I've been there many times and it's really neat because we start well every Friday so we're actually right after this call this podcast we have our community coach call and we've got we've got coaches all over the country and I get to step in and facilitate training for about 35 45 minutes and we open it up for dialogue and communicate

Me too.

And we actually have a pastor who is a coach also inside of Isle of Coaching. Every Friday he takes us out with a prayer. Every Friday. We've got a female coach whose husband is a pastor also. And so when pastor's not there, she steps in and takes us out with a prayer. And what I'll do is I share with the coaches who are new to the community, if this is not your thing, that's okay. You can hop off, there's no judgment, there's no right or wrong.

Though every community call, we end with a prayer.

I love that. When you focus on overcoming the egos and avoiding self-sabotage as part of your coaching program, as I imagine you do, are there any, you don't have to name names, but any transformation stories that stand out?

Let's see here. Well, here's what I think. We're all emotional beings, right? Truly, we're emotional beings. Though if you take it a little bit further, we're actually just spiritual beings, right? We are a spiritual-based soul inside of a human body that if we allow our emotions to dictate our actions without giving true thought to being a spiritual being,

you're going to make mistakes more times than not. Right? So I'll give you an example. I was coaching a principal owner of a big time real estate brokerage. And we had created a whole new organizational flow for her company. And she was sharing that with some of the board. And one of the board members was like, nope, I'm not in, not gonna do it.

Nope, I don't believe it, I don't want it. I might actually sell my shares and get out of here. She was beside herself, right? She was beside herself in emotion, okay? And so we went down this path of dissecting this emotion, which was ego-driven, ego-driven based in an insecure emotion. And we only tatted for about 15 minutes of an hour-long call.

And all I did was just kept repositioning her thought process, reframing her thought process, getting back to understanding what were the controllables in this situation, not emotional but more logical. And we got to the end of it and you could hear her, the inflection in her voice going down from being massively energized, if you will, negatively because it's all fear-based. And she's like, Adam, I'm done. This is perfect. Thank you.

I was like, hey, we got 45 minutes left here. And she's like, that's okay, I'm done. I don't need anything else. See you, bye. And she hung up the phone. So I think transformations can happen just like that in 15 minutes. Yep, just like that. I'll go to the flip side. We've had coaches that don't align with us, that won't get out of ego, right? That do not show up authentically because all they wanna do is look good and be right.

Yeah.

Doesn't work. That's not true, right? And so I have let coaches go who live in that space because again, here's my core values. You have to align with our core values. I don't care how much money you're bringing in, money's a byproduct of the value that you bring anyway. So if you're driven by money, sure, money does a lot of good things for other people that when you receive it, you should give it, right? My kids are 15 and 13 and I pay them for tournaments. It's a whole nother conversation, tennis tournaments when they win.

Though 10% has to go to giving, right? 30% has to go to savings, and 60% they can keep and play with. Though they have to know how to give. And if you're not in a real coach space, you're not aligned with us and our core values because you're inauthentic.

I mean, oftentimes people have one coach, right? Or one advisor or one person that they lean on. Um, do you find value in them having multiple coaches? Um, or, or a singular coach.

So again, let's go back to vision. It all stems around vision. Knowing that again, we're spiritual beings, but we live in a whole life, right? So your world is not just your business. Your world is not just your finances. Your world is your health, your relationships, your wealth, all of that. So I got remarried last August. And to truly the love of my life, we call it, we're equals, right? We call each other equals.

And though when we dated for probably five, six years prior to that, she was also from a divorce relationship. And we didn't we didn't wait because we were afraid to be married. But when we when I proposed, we had this whole long engagement and I thought, if I don't better myself, my fear.

is that my past will repeat itself. So I went out and hired Dr. Kelly Flanagan. Let's give him a plug right now. Dr. Kelly Flanagan is, in my opinion, probably one of the foremost experts in relationships. And hired him, and we had met at another event, and he said, ooh, I get to coach the coach of coaches. I said, this is gonna be fun, yes. And so he, gosh, Jim, he did so good.

and coaching me in the relationship space. I'd never had a relationship coach, but at that moment in time, my vision was for me to step into a space of being a better Adam Roach than Adam Roach in the past. And so I knew I had to go hire that coach for that specific purpose. I have a health coach, right? I still have a relationship coach. I have business coaches and I also have financial coaches. So I have four coaches that I deal with on a monthly basis that coach me. It's expensive. It is expensive.

Let me tell you the expensiveness though, when you make a mistake, that's more expensive. Yeah.

Yeah. And how do the coaches that you've surrounded yourself with help you to not make those mistakes?

So again, it's my community, right? So my community of coaches, we are all real coaches. And if anybody is in an authentic space, we get to call each other out, including myself. My name is on the bottom of the checks and I'm just as human as the next person. So we all, we're all in a big WhatsApp group also. Every morning I send my to-dos to that WhatsApp group and I'll push people also and they'll push me back.

that he had an impact on throughout his whole coaching career and the impact that it was it was just mind-blowing to me and what I realized even of other coaches that showed up telling stories of my father I was like gosh you know he really surrounded himself with people that pushed him as the main coach and so I audited my who's that were in my life at that moment in time

And I took a hard look and I owned three franchises. And I walked in, I was like, guys, I'm out. So either you're gonna buy me out or I'm gonna buy you all out. It's gonna be pretty much that simple because this is nothing personal. You're just not my who's, right? You're just not the people that I wanna surround myself with. And Jim, again, truly a God blessing that they all decided to buy me out. All three different franchises, right? And it was just like, whew.

authentically.

So let's translate this to parenting for a second. So I'm just gonna leave it open-ended. What are some pointers as a new father, as I'm sure others are listening, as maybe new fathers or fathers in general, or mothers? How do these things connect, how does this connect to parenting?

Good one

Hmm. Well, again, for those that are that are not seeing us, I'm bald. So I have I've pulled out my hair trying to answer this question. No, I think that's more I think that's more genetics or it could be stress at the same time. You know, it's Jim, in my opinion, I think that there is no book, right, that there's no right or wrong book.

Though as a father, my job that I tell the kids, as I tell my kids all the time, my job, kids, is to keep you in a kid brain as long as possible. Because when you step into an adult brain, you have to be emotionally, physically, mentally prepared to step into that adult brain. And so we've used that language since they could understand English, right? And I'll give an example.

I love that.

My daughter, we live in kind of a golf cart community and she was driving a golf cart and she had her cousins on there and it was kind of a six seater, we called it the limousine golf cart. And at the time, let's see here, that was last year, so she's like 12 years old. Really shouldn't have been driving the golf cart because I think you actually have to be 15 to drive the golf cart around the neighborhood, but she's driven many times. And was on the golf cart driving, this was a good one.

had her phone, looked down at her phone, and we all know what it feels like to have your hand on the steering wheel, looked down and the wheel goes that way, right? And she hit a mailbox. And she hit a mailbox and the mailbox hit her cousin. And he had a scratch on his face and I wasn't with them. She came back and she was just, just scared, upset and all these things. And so I sat her down. Instead of just reaming her, which I really wanted to do,

I said, let me ask you a question. When you stepped onto that golf cart, was that an adult brain moment or was that a kid brain moment? Meaning that you were now responsible for that vehicle. You're responsible for the people on the vehicle. Were you in a kid brain or an adult brain? And she's like, I don't know. And I said, I'm gonna answer the question for you. You were in a kid brain in an adult moment.

And the outcome of that was what you got, okay? Because you were in a kid brain. So let me ask you a question. Do you want to step into an adult brain now, or do you wanna stay in a kid brain as long as possible? I wanna stay in a kid brain. Great, great. So here's what we're gonna do then. You're not going to drive the golf cart until you're ready to be in an adult brain at that moment. Now.

My intention was to have her see the difference and also put a little fear in there. But instantly the next day I made her get on the golf cart so she wasn't afraid of the golf cart. I was in the passenger seat and I said, we're gonna go around the block and you're gonna drive and I want you to step into an adult brain. Now adult brain means that you're focused and adult brain means that you remove distractions. Adult brain means that you follow the rules of the road and that's an adult brain. As soon as we get back, plug the golf cart in, you wanna get out, you wanna jump on the trampoline, you wanna get on your phone, do those types of things, go back to kid brain, right? So.

Mm-hmm.

That's how I parent and I tell them all the time that my job is to make them the best adults possible. Right, the best adults possible. Here's another good story. So my son, they're homeschooled basically. So they go to the academy and their school is there but it's all a homeschool program, which means it's all online. And from time to time, so that means they take their tests online, they do everything online. And from time to time, the headmaster, the principal,

will do a history search of their searches on Google. And what she's looking for is the time that they search for something and the search based on when they're taking tests. And so my son texted me yesterday and he's like, dad, guess what? He called it the audit. There was an audit of our search history. It was just a random one.

Hmm.

I was like, cool. And he said, this person, this person, this person got caught. And I was like, very good. I said, did you get caught? And here was his answer. This was so good. He didn't say no, I didn't get caught. You know what he said? Dad, I don't cheat. It's like perfect. There you go. Did you get caught? No, I don't get caught because I don't cheat. I thought good. So we had a good long conversation in the hot tub last night about that. And we talked about integrity, right? Integrity is doing the thing.

Yeah.

that you're supposed to do even when no one's watching or the lights are off, right?

Yeah.

So that's how I parent. I don't know if it's right, I don't know if it's wrong. If we've got some psychologists or some parenting experts, I would love to hear their feedback on that.

Yeah.

All right, let's do another show with the foremost experts in Farrington. Let's, let's switch gears here for a second to, um, to, to business systems, right? Um, cause I know you're a big systems guy, whether you were at killer Williams or, you know, in, in businesses or on coaching or, you know, just general systems and frameworks, what, um, I guess what, what drove you to the fact that you need a system? Um, and, um,

Good.

Mm-hmm.

And can you share any example of how implementing a structured system has significantly impacted either yours or someone you work with, business success?

Yes. So look at yourself in the mirror and see how broad your shoulders are. Because that's how much you can carry. As I coach, when I talk to clients that are carrying the weight of their business, I ask them, how broad are your shoulders? Because again, how much can you carry? The answer is usually not much. So I'll give you an example of systems and the system that I built.

When I took over at Keller Williams office here in Charleston, we had about 125 agents doing maybe $200,000 in profit. And my role was to go recruit. My role was to go find revenue producers and increase my revenue. That was it. That was my role. And then coach and consult and train and do those other things. Though the system that I was taught was very inefficient and not effective.

and they were all sheets of every agent. And I'd take one off and I'd look at it and said, Bob Smith, phone number, email. I would just call and I'd write the date. I'd write my conversation or I'd put NVM for no voicemail. And I'd put that in answered, didn't answer conversation or appointment set pile and I'd go to the next one and I'd go to the next one and I'd go to the next one. I'd make a hundred calls a day. And I realized.

Gosh, what a labor intensive shouldering process that was. So I paused for a second. I'm a big whiteboard guy. I love whiteboards. I love to see flow. I love to see processes from inefficient to efficient, and then let's break it all down and audit it and look for your bottlenecks, right? So I created a system called Recruiting Bridge. Now here's a fun story. I floated all out.

Mm-hmm.

One of my old buddies from high school and college who actually crashed one of my cars when we lived in Los Angeles, and I took the fall for it, right? And I paid for everything too. And so I had this little chip and he was a big time programmer. And so I said, hey, remember that car you crashed in mine that, I've got a favor to ask. I said, I got this system. Can you program it and can you build it?

And so he looked at it and he calls me back a couple days later. He's like, yeah, I can build this. It's like, great. So he builds this system called Recruiting Bridge. And we played with it. We tweaked it. And it was just for me. It was just for me. And this is the power of also becoming a category king. And teaching people how when they have a problem, if you have the solution, boom, you can grow a business instantly. So Recruiting Bridge was something that I was using to make myself more efficient. So that big old stack.

who went into a CRM database. That phone calls, boy, I could call right from the system. I could text from the system. I could email from the system and it was social media integrated. So if I wanted to go to the social media, I could push a button, all done right there and boom, out we went, right? So I was able to increase my efficiency. So let's pause that. And when I sold the company, we had...

And I learned about a subscription model. They were all paying $399 per month. And we built a company. It was great. Yep. So that's a story of a system, right? Is understanding where your pain is, understanding that you can't shoulder this. You've got to find the efficiencies in the process. And I'm not saying be a pioneer and create something, but go find some pioneers that have already created something, understand your bottlenecks, and then fill it with a system. My opinion of the system can be a tool, it can be a person.

Yeah.

I just...

It can be a resource of sorts.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a, you got to select something that fills the gap, right? It's kind of, it's kind of what you're saying. It's like, it's not, don't have a system to have a system have a focused purpose and intention around where the gaps in your business are, or the gaps in your life, or the gaps in your faith or whatever it might be, and find the system that, that fulfills that purpose.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, for sure. And what I would say in continuation with that is you may not know, right? So this is going to be a shameless plug, but that's why you go find a coach, right? Because a coach will look, a coach will look at you from a 50,000 foot view and can look down and see where you are being inefficient. They can look down and point out with no emotion where you have opportunities, right? And that's, that's why

That's why I have the company called I Love Coaching because coaching, our vision statement is to, so we're a coach-based company, to empower coaches to change and serve 100 million people by using the real blueprint that I created. And real again is the acronym for Relevant Experiential Authentic Leader. And we're on track. I mean, I don't know about on track to 100 million. That was a number that came to me when I was mourning of my father and I was sitting on the beach praying and crying and journaling and.

Mm-hmm.

listening to music and putting the sunscreen on my head. Yeah, 100 million popped in when I was journaling. So that's where it lives. And I don't know how we're gonna get to 100 million, but I guarantee you Jim, we'll figure out how to get to 100 million. I think what it really is, is think about that pebble that goes in the water, that ripple, that's what's gonna happen, right? You hire a coach because you want to become more efficient in your world. Your systems need to be better. That coach that impacts you, guess what you get to go do?

You get to now go impact somebody else better in your space, whatever that is. That person goes impact somebody else because you impacted them. That's how I see the hundred million coming.

Let me ask you a hard question, I guess, and one that I've battled with a lot. You know, there's a lot of truth to focusing so much on wealth that it gets in the way of faith, right? That it gets in the way of God. And we've talked a lot about that side of things. And then this hundred million dollar number comes up, right? How do you keep...

Yes.

got at the forefront while still having a number as the goal.

So 100 million isn't the number of dollars and cents, it's the number of people that we wanna impact. 100 million people, yeah. So, though on the wall right over here, I do have a goal to get to a million dollars a month of building this company. So, the easy answer for me, Jim, is it's not mine. It's not mine, this is not mine.

Oh. Got it. Got it. Okay.

I know none of this here is mine. I've been graced with the opportunity to have the success that I have through being faithful. That's what I believe. Like I said, I've made and lost millions. When I lost, I had lost vision of that path of faith. What's given to you also can be taken from you.

Man, I got to sit with last week, Dan Cathy. Dan Cathy is the chairman of the board of Chick-fil-A, right? He's the son of Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A. So it's us, it's my wife, and there's about 20 others, and we're in a round table leadership discussion. And I tell you what, he, from a leadership standpoint, Jim, instantly, we're going into a leadership conversation, he quotes scripture, right? He quotes scripture. He quoted...

Matthew 541, it's like go in the mile, go the extra mile, go to mile two, right? So it's basically the eye for an eye also.

It starts and ends there for me. It starts and ends in the faith base, 100 million, one million a month. It's, I've got on the vision board that we will tie the $100,000, right? And we plan on taking the kids to mission type stuff so they can see the outside and understand the giving process. 10% they have to give in their savings account because again, it's not there.

We are just stewards of it and we have to step into that space and believe it. I believe that. Again, this is just Adam Roach talking here. I'm not preaching to anybody. This is how I live my life.

I got one more.

Oh dude, it's, I mean, it's your truth, right? And it's, I think it's a truth that a lot of people push towards, but maybe don't always fulfill, because I think that there's always a number in their mind that put, especially driven people, that pushes them, and that to a degree, whether they say so or not, they believe, they haven't switched that thing to know that this is not theirs, right? They want to do that.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

but that doesn't necessarily mean that they've converted into that mindset. And it's, it is, it is, it is definitely a switch and there's something that connects to it based on our previous conversation. I want to end here before we, uh, hop into our founder five at the end. Um, so the question is, there's this concept that you talk about and that you've had called beach chair moments, right? Um, so how have these beach chair moments shaped your go forward truth?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

And what are they?

Yeah, so, yeah, so very simple. And again, the beach share moment was four days of me mourning my father's passing. And so number one, that was when I understand that who you surround yourself with matters, right? And sure, was it scary going in and talking to all my investor partners that I was either buying them out or they were buying me out? Yes, but I felt called to do that.

So I had no attachment to the outcome. So that was number one. Number two, really stepping into my faith even more, knowing that as I walk home and pray out loud, I know my neighbors think I'm crazy. There goes Adam Roach walking down the middle of the street talking to, who's he talking to? He's just talking out loud. I talk to my dad at the same time, right? So every morning, pray out loud. And then when I'm finished praying, I will talk to my dad.

And so that was, that's something that was hard for me to figure out though at the beach chair moment, I was afraid to talk to him because I was so sad. Though now that had led me to this moment of, he's spiritual being, so he's around me all the time and I know that. And unfortunately, my wife's father just passed about two months ago. So now I include him in the conversation as well.

I think the last thing there, Jim, is my entire life prior to that beach chair moment was 100 miles an hour every second. And what I realized was that he was 69 when he passed, and it's gone like that. He only found out he had Parkinson's because he was training for a triathlon and that he had run many, that he had performed in many times.

And his times were getting slower. His times were getting slower and he thought, what is going on here? And I'm like, dad, you're getting older. And he's like, no, something's not right. So he went to the doctor and the doctor's like, yeah, you have Parkinson's, that's why you're slowing down. He's like, oh wow. So time is, life is futile, right? It can be gone in a second. So, man, I choose to live every moment in intentionality, giving grace to God because it,

It'll be gone tomorrow, right? This is all finite. It's all finite. So that beach chair moment led me to that too. So now we have a family agreement that we don't rush. There's no rushing, right? If you rush, the definition of rush is you said yes to something you should've said no to. That's what we say, right? So if you're rushing, it's not because you woke up late, it's not because something else, it's you chose to do something else that you said yes to that you should've said no to.

Because again, you knew what that time was. Every morning I'd take the kids to tennis at 6.45. If I get up at 6.15, I said yes to getting up at 6.15 versus getting up at 4.45. Right, and that is a yes, which means that I now have to rush. Don't say yes, right? So that was it, that's it. Beat ceremony, beat ceremony, Tim.

Beach Chair moments, man. All right, let's hop into Founder 5, which is just five quick hit questions to close us off about you and your growth. So the first one is the top metric or KPI that you are relentlessly focused on.

So the number of days that I exercise. Today was day 232 out of 280 was the goal. Is the goal for the year. Yep. That's right. Yep.

Okay. All right. 50 days left. All right. Um, a, uh, a top tip for growth stage founders like yourself.

Find your who's, find your coaches. Money doesn't matter, go put it on a credit card because again that ROI will be much greater than the opposite of not.

Nice. A favorite book or podcast that's helped you to grow.

Gosh, there's one called The Dirt, right? I think it's, is that the name of the? No. That's right. I read what really kicked me off, gosh, this was probably 20 plus years ago, was the book called Titan. Titan is, I believe, a biography, not an autobiography, but a biography, John D. Rockefeller. And in there, it talks about basically how he dominated the oil space with standard oil.

Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for the plug.

and I bet I've read, it's probably a 700 page book. I think I've probably read it at least three or four times.

A piece of advice that counters traditional wisdom.

Mm, a piece of advice that counters traditional wisdom. Well, that's a really good one. Let's see here. Being bald is better than having hair because I get to give myself my own haircuts and I don't have to worry about what's going on up here. I don't know.

I expect you to just say something like give it give it all to God not for yourself or something along those lines, but I like this one too. All right. What is going to be the title of your autobiography?

Okay, good. Yeah.

Easy, beach share moments.

I love it. All right. I got one special thing just since we're both dads to close us off at all. I started doing dad jokes a couple episodes and people asked me to keep them in here. So this one's just for you. How many life coaches does it take to change a light bulb?

Ooh, two, I don't know, how many?

Only one, but the light bulb has to want to change.

That's good. That's really good. That's good. Yeah. I was gonna say that was that was a really good one. Hold that one.

You've given a tanda. Oh, go ahead. What was that?

Okay, you got it. You've given a ton to everyone listening in today, Adam. So just time for a little bit of self promotion. How can those listening help you out?

You can help us out by, gosh, stepping into your own space. If you wanna come coach with us, if you're a coach or if you need a coach, go to ilovecoachingco.com. Fill out the questionnaire, come connect with us. Connect with me on Instagram, Adam R. Roach. So two R's there, Adam R. Roach. You can find us on Instagram as well, ilovecoachingco. If you happen to be in the Southeast area, we are doing a whole life planning summit, November 2nd and 3rd. You can go to ilovecoachingsummit.com.

Check that out, John Maxwell is our keynote speaker this year. And it'll be a two-day event focusing on health, wealth, relationship, spirituality, community, and leadership.

Adam Roach, thanks for joining us on the dirt, man.

Jim, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. God bless everybody.

God bless.

Well you rock, so that was cool.