Episode 11: The Journey from Pastor to Indoor Golf Entrepreneur ft: Brian Williams of Mind Body Swing

Summary

In this episode of the Zipper Podcast, we interview Brian Williams, a PGA professional and founder of Mind Body Swing. Brian shares his journey from being a pastor to pursuing his passion for golf, detailing the challenges and triumphs he faced along the way. He discusses the importance of surrounding oneself with supportive people, the stress of corporate jobs versus entrepreneurship, and the significance of building a strong team. Brian also delves into the branding of MindBody Swing and offers valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Takeaways

• Brian transitioned from being a pastor to a PGA professional.
• He emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with supportive people.
• Brian felt he was dying a slow death in his corporate job.
• He aims to change his family's financial future through entrepreneurship.
• Starting earlier would have been beneficial for Brian.
• Providing the best product is a core value for MindBody Swing.
• Brian's wife joined him as a co-owner to help grow the business.
• He believes in the importance of delegation and finding the right team.
• Social media can mislead golfers; professional guidance is essential.
• Staying true to personal values is crucial for success.

Transcript

Chris Alto (00:01)

Hey, what's going on? have Chris Alto here with the Zipper Podcast. Today we are delighted to feature Brian Williams, PGA professional at MindBody Swing. Brian, thanks so much for coming on. Yeah, amazing. So let's just dive into it. We'd love to hear a bit about your background. I know you and I have been working together for little while, but love to hear about your background. What had you get started with MindBody Swing and go from there.

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Brian Williams (00:12)

Chris, thanks so much for having me, man. It's an honor.

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Yeah, man, that's a good question. This can probably be an hour session just on that question, but it goes back to just play college golf and play college golf at Nichols State University. I've always, since I was like in middle school, had a love for golf and made my dream happen. Played at the collegiate level, got out, met my wife in college. And then when we, when I graduated, I

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finished golf and did not continue to be a golf professional. I actually went to seminary and was a pastor. And then outside of that, we started having kids. I was 21 years old, got married to my wife at 19 and we had no freaking money. And well, and I always loved golf. And so I had this opportunity to work at a little nine hole dump golf course, which I thought was the coolest thing in the world, like holy cow.

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I played golf my whole life and now I get to actually work in a golf course and I just worked in the shop. I'm 22 years old when I get there and I'm washing golf carts, opening the golf shop thinking like I have made it. And I thought I did. It was cool. I'm making like $8 an hour. It was the coolest thing in the world. And from there, I just fell in love with the golf business and doing it. And so I then had the opportunity to

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actually work on the maintenance side. And so I'm trying to figure out what the heck I want to do with golf. Getting every opportunity possible. And I'm just like, yes, yes, yes, whatever I can do. I can make a little bit more money. A young family, married couple with no money. And then I fall in love with cutting grass. I'm cutting the golf course greens. I'm spraying the greens, learning about chemicals. And so I'm at this golf course for like two years. And then I get the opportunity. They offer me, I'm freaking 24 years old.

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and they offered me the general manager head golf professional job. Maybe because I'm like a super young, energetic, pretty good golfer. And so they offered me the job and I'm like, hell yes, this is a dream. And I'm thinking of making like $45,000. And I'm like, my God, I'm the wealthiest dude in the world. I come from a family with no money. And yeah, so from there, they put me into the PGA program. And that's where kind of like a accountant going get their CPA. I'm getting my PGA.

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Class A classification. And from there, in this program, which is cool, I'd fly out to Port St. Lucie in South Florida to complete this program. And in the middle of that, I meet friends, meet people, and long story short, I get offered a position to move out to Baton Rouge. It's like a big, for like a big boy job, like as a 25 year old, and I get offered the head golf professional job in Baton Rouge at a course called Pelican Point Golf Club.

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27 whole golf course. I am like, man, I made it as a human being. I'm 25. I'm like, I'm doing this for the rest of my life. We move out there, me, my wife, and I have a one year old and a three mother. And we move out to Baton Rouge. I get my class A PGA professional in less than 18 months. And when I get there, I'm 25. And I guess one thing that's always been cool is that I've always just wanted to learn. And so I reach out to every golf pro in the area.

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And I'm like can I just learn from you? I'm freaking 25. I have no idea how people have hired me because I'm 25 and I have like zero experience. I just have passion. I'm from Cut-Off. You could barely understand the way I speak. I'm from South Louisiana and people just started taking me under their wing and I would meet with people and I became good friends with the head golf pro at the Country Club of Louisiana, Gammon Manning. And we'd meet every month and then one month he was like man I got a different conversation. I want you to come over here.

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and learn under me. I'm creating a succession process and I'd love for you to come be the golf pro at Country Club of Louisiana. I'm 26 years old and I'm like, that's the highest position in Louisiana. I'll be there tomorrow. So I'm like, yes. And what's cool is I didn't have to move. I'm in Baton Rouge. It's the most prestige club in Louisiana. And I go and in two years I become the director of golf at the Country Club of Louisiana and I'm 28 years old.

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I'm on top of the world thinking this is, I made it. That was my dream to be the director of golf at one of the high-end country club. And man, a year in, I'm like, my God, this is not what I want to do. And I'm glad I did and always had a passion to use this game to impact people's lives. And I love teaching golf and it was always like a dream of my wife and I. kind of joked but serious about it. I'm like, I'd love to, we'd love to our own business.

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And just was like, I have no idea how that would ever happen. I've never been taught how to do that. And I don't, that's a risk. we've lived our whole life of no debt, save our money, put it in 401ks and just prepare ourselves for when we're 60 years old and then we can live and enjoy our lives. And I realized quickly, man, I was dying a slow death in the position I was at. And told my wife 10 years ago when I was in the, just getting started in the business that I would never choose the golf business.

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over her or our future family. And I'm watching myself work 70 hours a week, making the best money I've ever made in my life. I mean, working 70 hours a week and working every weekend. And after I missed the 12th baseball game of my two beautiful boys, I got two young boys who are six and five, never had any birthday parties or anything. I realized that, man, I want them to look to me as superhero and I want to be that father figure and someone who's available in their life. And so,

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Cool story was we end up buying a new house because we want to live on a little property. We live in a neighborhood with a six and a five year old who are the most energetic human beings you'd ever meet. And so we were like, okay, start looking. And we come upon this house that's on a beautiful piece of property over an acre and couple was getting a divorce and they have a 1500 square foot shop on the property. And the couple was using that for a second business. And I was like,

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I like, maybe I think the stars aligned. Like this is my opportunity. If I'm ever going to open my own business, I'm doing it in our backyard. Like the address is already set up. The insurance is set up on the property to do all this. Like I want to do it. just some situations happened at the club where I was at that verify what I wanted to do. And then I started meeting with mentors and I flew out to California because I've been on staff with Callaway golf for 10 years and they kept me as a master staff.

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and were going to support me through this and open me as an account and sponsor me and then the launch monitor team sponsored me and I was like hell yeah I'm taking a shot and it came to just and then it came like at the same time at that I was at a point in my life that I was like I I want to be the best version of myself and I realized that I I get one life to live Chris and I was like freak like I'm 30 at the point I'm 29 years old about to be 30 and like I want to

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be my own boss and I want to create a life for my kids. I want to be a bloodline changer for my family and like change the kind of money that I could potentially make but use a sport, a gift that I've been given to impact people's lives. And I told my wife I'm in the best shape of my life mentally and physically. Like this is the time of my life that I want to do it. I'm going to take a risk. And so the dreaming started happening. All the emotions, excitements are happening. And what for me broke through is I broke through fear and

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the, I'm gonna probably get into later, like the name and all of it, but all that came out of just, I became the customer that I wanted. I'm waking up at five o'clock in the morning, working out, I'm changing my life. And I wrote down in my notebook one day, like I wanted to name a company MindBodySwing and made a decision. I told my wife this was the date I wanted to do it and left the highest position job I could have ever had. And the amount of people that were like, you're an absolute idiot. What are you doing?

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And four months later, I'm living a freaking dream of when I left and yeah, so much more to talk about. But yeah, I guess if that answer is kind of where I'm at of where it led us to where I'm at now.

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Chris Alto (08:47)

That's super cool. I didn't realize that you were a pastor before because one thing I wanted to talk to you about too is like, you're one of the most positive people who I talk to. Like every time I talk to you, you're fired up, you're always positive, you're always focusing on the positives. How has that shaped your ability to push through, you mentioned fear and go and start something when there's a lot on the line?

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Brian Williams (09:13)

Yeah, Chris, that's a great question. I, yes, I came from a religious background and I pursued that and it was great. then we had a little, we had some change in things that happened just in our past, but man, I've always believed like it was something so much more for me. the, and just a belief in God like was powerful for me, man. And in the sense of

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taking a leap of faith that I knew if I'm gonna take a step out to pursue a dream and yeah, just having power, having strength, having belief that there is good out there for me and that you read all these stories, you listen to all these podcasts about people that stepped out and pursued a dream and you're like, man, I wish that could be me. And I'm like, it can be me. And in the midst of all these challenges, I think that's what I held to. The question that kept coming to and

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had a mentor that asked me the greatest question that led me to all this. I have this written down in my journal and he said, Brian, if you got to your death bed at 80 years old, and I was asking him the question, like if I should do this, if this is insane to me to do, and he said, if you got to your death bed, whatever age you were, and you look back and would you regret if you did not do it? I said, hell yeah, I would. And he said, that's your decision, you got it. Like why wouldn't you? And so, yeah, I mean, that's kind of...

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pushed me and encouraged me and it helped me get past the fear stage and allowed me to continue to dream and even when people that were like close to me like friends of mine, mean like some of my closest friends are like dude you're insane, you have a family of four, what are you doing? Like you're gonna leave this that's comfort, stability and that helped having people that actually loved me and cared for me. Some of the biggest things I'd ever encourage someone that's gonna try to take a leap is

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the people you surround yourself is who you become. And so I've always been a very passionate, positive person, but in the last year, I surrounded myself around people that loved me and cared for me and wanted me to see me and pursue and accomplish my dreams. And it was those people that are still with me now. And the ones that were close to me that loved me maybe because they wanted me to come, they wanted to come play golf at a high end golf course, because I could get them that kind of perk. When I said I was doing this,

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or the people actually I don't even want to look to for wisdom and advice now because I look at their lives and I'm like that's not what I want to model my life after.

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Chris Alto (11:42)

Yeah, that's an interesting point. She mentioned kind of the stress level and the fact that you had this comfortable job and yet you still were very stressed out and being an entrepreneur is very stressful, I'm sure as you can attest to. So, she's talking a little about the differences of those two stress levels, like how it felt when you were in this job that was cushy and stable and you were doing really well versus now it sounds like there's still stress but it might be a different stress. Like how do you think about those two things?

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Brian Williams (11:52)

Yeah.

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That's a great question. The stress I had in the original W2 job I had, which 90 % of people are sitting in their houses right now, working W2 jobs, exhausted, frustrated because you always know that you're worth more. And yes, I had a title that I was at the top of a position, but because I was paid a certain salary, there was like humongous expectations and it always felt like you could never...

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accomplished those expectations and I was serving 500 members. I was an equity on golf course. It's like I had like 500 bosses. So then the exhaustion and stress, I would I'd have 300 to 400 text messages a day, 200 to 300 emails and I'm coming home and then I'm finishing a 12-hour shift and I come home and I got kids come and run around me and want me to be dad and I look like a zombie coming home and it's like I was exhausted and done and that's what I feel like most people who in corporate America kind of try to pursue this high-end position they get there.

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And then it's a humongous checklist of responsibilities. And I told myself I never want to be that. I believe that I have a unique value to me and then there's a unique responsibility. So I think in being an entrepreneur, I now get to use the skills I have now with no ceiling. the income I want to make, the people I want to impact, the things I want to say, the things I want to do. And so now the stressors I have is kind of just me putting my back against the wall and betting on myself and the stress of

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making sure I'm properly managing my taxes and making sure I got a good CPA and a good lawyer and so to protect me. And then I'd say now even the biggest stress I have is as an entrepreneur that I would encourage people is you feel like you have to do it all. And I think the biggest thing that's been so freeing lately that's been from mentors and books and lately is being able to

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find people. It's the who, not how. It's finding the right people that have a certain unique ability. So finally, I'm four months in and I'm not writing emails anymore. I'm not editing social media posts. I'm getting people on that now has taken the business to the next level. And I think as an entrepreneur, the death penalty for you is feeling like you have to do everything, that you are sweeping your building. You are responding to every email, responding to every text message, and you'll quickly burn yourself out.

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Chris Alto (14:31)

Yeah, the important delegation, guess it sounds like it's been, because now you're working with your wife, right? Who is on your team. sounds like you're also expanding the team. So how have you thought about growing the team? What have you looked for in new folks? I know that you're still a young business, but you're growing super quickly. So how have you thought about that?

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Brian Williams (14:33)

Yeah.

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Yeah, another good question. I mean, I started off, I launched myself. I'm the only person. I get an amazing team like you guys to help me figure what the heck I'm trying to do. I have no money in the bank in a business. didn't come from a family. just said, hey, here's a million dollars now. Go have a good business. It was nothing. So I'm doing everything. I'm making sure software's are updated. I'm making sure emails are getting sent out. I'm getting the video. I'm in the middle of a lesson and I'm trying to hurry up and pop someone on a video.

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and I'm editing videos and realizing quick the fuel for this business explodes because business golf is on the biggest growth ever in history right now, which is the coolest thing in the world. And then I'm realizing quickly like, I'm teaching seven, nine lessons a day trying to edit social media, trying to manage.

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I was trying to manage my expenses, trying to manage revenue coming in, trying to have a social media presence because I'm such a gold dreamer. I live like way up here all the time if you ask my wife. But I'm realizing quickly I'm like the road I'm on if I don't get help, I'll be like a lot of other entrepreneurs who just kind of fizzle out and die out and that was the last thing I wanted to do because I love what I'm doing. And I convinced my wife who has also a very cushioned job.

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I mean if you're not, if you're a golf pro, go be an accountant. That's what my wife was doing. She's an accountant. I mean everybody needs an accountant or a CPA. And she works just awesome hours. But I mean she's in the same thing. She's W2 employee who's bust her ass doing what she's doing. And she is not getting increases. She's not really changing. And I'm like, Kaylin, you can do this. She's the first hire and she's always believed in me. She never stopped me from pursuing my

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And I brought her on as co-owner of the business and she had such the same vision and so she wanted to not just be a checklist worker, she wanted to come on and that was and help blow up the business. And as I started thinking of scaling the business and growing and bringing on new people was from finding people that have a unique ability and they have a unique task. The last thing I want to do, so we developed an acronym called DEVELOP and it's our core values. It's destroy negativity.

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We want to empower employees. We want to value teamwork. We want to embrace MBS. We want to lift lives. We want to optimize personal growth. And we want to provide quality product. And so I said, I want to find people who are going to do that. Like, now I get to freaking hire who I want to hire. I don't have to like just go into business and hope these people get out of their shitty attitudes and start having good lives. Like I get to hire who I want to hire. And so then I started realizing

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areas that I'm not good at and not as passionate about and then go and find those people because the moment I then start to find the who's now I can take the business from being a pretty good business to a very successful profitable business. And again though, that's a fear for a business owner because they're like, well man, that is a potential expense. Like, but when you can get past the, your, your time is an investment, your time is value and who you are and what you give is so important.

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So I bring my wife on, right when I bring her on, we're like 90 days out into the business and the in-person blows up. We launched this new in-person membership. And I mean, I'm charging people a part of a membership that people are paying like members of a country club. And we get a wait list for it right away because I'm able to get my wife on board. She comes because she has a unique ability. She's not the Brian that talks 90 miles an hour and is so crazy excited, kind of psycho.

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But she is passionate, she loves what she does and she's so good. She brought such a different side that I wouldn't even think about. From welcome page to connecting with members to ways of write a point sign up here and I'm like my God, this is why I love you and like I bring her on and then realized quickly I'd never want any employee who comes on to be a checklist person. I want them to have their unique ability and use their unique task and accomplish that task. And so we started realizing, well man like my wife

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is doing the marketing and now editing posts. And those are getting put to the back burner because she's, she's an accountant. She's managing the finances. She's HR, like potentially looking at hiring people. So there's just so much roles that she has. And we realized quickly, like we need a social media marketing director who we hired two days ago. And this person already has exploded in two days. The ideas, the things that she has, and it's like her dream now. like, we almost like tried to not hire.

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before like to share like, this is what you're coming into like, and my wife's like, this is how Brian is every single day. I'm telling you, lives here. Like if you can handle like high energy, super positivity, but like he's super goal oriented and he's gonna want to expect here and you to like be the best version of yourself. And she's in tears, like, yes, this is what I want to be able to do. It's been my dream to do. She comes on board and it's like in two days, the sales that we just had in two days is insane. But like I am now as an entrepreneur and owner,

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My unique value is performing, like is being able to teach golf, is being able to be the face of the company is I now can get behind the camera and don't have to worry about is a real gonna get posted, is a story gonna get posted? Like these things are just gonna happen. so, and now I'm fresh, I'm excited. I can even take on more lessons. I now can have time for creativity and think about now I'm about to launch an online membership. Now I'm about to launch courses and things that I can do that I would have never been able to do if I would have.

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continue to make sure all the subscriptions are being paid, make sure all the softwares were up to date, make sure every email was getting put out because I started realizing emails weren't getting put out. I look back, I was like, we've done four newsletters in freaking three months. I'm way behind every other entrepreneur. So yeah.

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Chris Alto (20:55)

That's exciting. So when you talk about financing the business, have you been able to do it just based upon cash flow and then that's how you're able to do it? Or did you raise money or take out a loan? How did you get things off the ground from a dollar standpoint?

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Brian Williams (21:12)

That was so funny because I remember the day my wife and I were like in the pool and like when we came to agreement, this is what we're doing. And we're like, what the hell we're going to do for money? Like, like we, we've done well personally, we have good finances and we have no debt, but like to start a business, like, we going to start a Kickstarter? Or my wife's like, what is a Kickstarter? And so like, like figuring out how we're to raise money. We're going to get like an angel investor. Are we going to words that we never even thought of. And so then

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And like the shop, the guy who owned the shop before, was a wood shop business. So like, it was definitely not a golf shop. I mean, it smelled like dirt. It stunk. It's full of dust. And so we're like, we definitely need to clean it. And we were like, we're on this like fine line. We knew we wanted to, I wanted to create a quality product. And so I'm like, well, maybe we just go cheap and kind of build our way up. We have the launch monitor. We don't go with air conditions. We get like some fans. And finally I was like, like if I'm going to ask someone to pay me.

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this amount of money to come get a golf lesson. This place has to be, I want to provide the best product. And so yeah, we took a home equity loan out on our house. And so we started a loan out to renovate the shop. I was like, I'm obviously, like, I didn't have to spend millions of dollars, but like I was able to make this shop awesome. Air-conditioned controlled. When the first stat that came out in 2023 that

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golf for the first time in history, more golf was being played off of a golf course than on a golf course, first time ever. I was like, well man, it's because of climate control. Like more people because of COVID, like that boosted golf, people didn't really want to go play golf for four and a half hours outside and sweat their asses off in Louisiana when it's 110 degrees. And so was like, I have to have climate control. Like I have to have air conditioning. So was like, okay, I got to that. Then it's got to look great. I want it to be.

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So more people were playing it Topgolf and Indoor Golf. So was like, I'm going to make it look like a bar like style. I have four TVs wrapped around the room and I have banging music going on. And so yeah, we made it awesome in here. And within the first year, we're to pay off that loan that we took to renovate the building. But so yeah, we went about it by using a loan.

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Chris Alto (23:24)

That's great. Both of you all in and doing a business alone against the house, it's super impressive. And you're paying off a year. That's amazing. Cool. Talk to me a little bit about the brand. So MindBody Swing, how did you come up with it? What does it mean? Any tips around branding that you've found?

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Brian Williams (23:26)

Yeah.

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Yeah.

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This is, I had no freaking experience. had no training of like, Hey man, when you want to launch a business, here's the graphics, how you got to make it. Here's what, but I'm sitting there like, okay, what name I'm on Google. I'm, I'm, feeling sophisticated. using Gemini. I'm using chat GBD. And I'm like, dang man. Like I don't know. And finally I'm, I'm mentor. Mine is just like, it's like, it's just who you are. Like, what are you? And I'm like, man, I care about, I care about the mind. I care about the body. I care about the swing. And he, and I was like, that's it.

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mind body swing. Those are the things I'm passionate about. If I'm to start a business, I want it to be, it didn't have to be this sexy, catchy thing like on Google or Facebook. And I still have the piece of paper in my journal of writing it out. And I was like, this is what I'm passionate about. I'm passionate about mental health, people that play golf, that have a clear conscience and are positive. These are some of the most negative people because it's such an exhausting game. We play it for years and years and

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You have so much pressure, it's an individual sport, it's not a team sport and you're trying to be the best version of yourself, play the best golf and you just hit a great shot and it hits the cart path and goes in the water and now you want to break your club. Like how do you control your mind? like mental health around, it's crazy like the mental struggle, the battle that people have and then like the physical side like I have in the last two years been in the best shape of my life nutritionally and physically and...

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Chris Alto (24:53)

Never been there.

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Brian Williams (25:08)

I wake up at five o'clock every morning and now I have a new way of waking up. I have a sun alarm that wakes me up. I haven't snoozed in two years and cleanest I've ever eaten. And so I'm like, this is paired now. Like Tiger Woods really changed that platform for golfers of physical and golf swing. We don't have like the John Daly's anymore who just drink Miller lights on the golf course and trying to play professional golf, which is nothing wrong. I'll enjoy beer after we get off this conversation. But like,

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the physical side of being in good healthy shape because I would see like so many clients I work with, they get to like the 13th, 14th hole after three and a half hours and they deplete and a lot of that's because they don't know how to maintain their blood sugar. And so I got like so passionate about people knowing how to have the right nutrition, not just like breakfast, lunch and dinner, but actually how to prep before a round of golf, during a round of golf and after a round of golf. And then the swing, the thing that separates me is I'm not just a swing instructor that you come in, get a whole bunch of cool videos.

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and then leave, I build you a plan. This sport is so hard and most people, every other sport, they play basketball, they football, they get on the gridiron, they get on the court, they go play in golf, people don't know to really practice. They just go in the driving range and they just grab a club, a seminar, and they start hitting it and not realizing that this game is so unique and so differentiated and people don't really know how to make a plan and so I created them a five-day practice plan and how to continue to meet their goals.

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Yes, that's where the brand came out of was just me living my own personal life. And so it's made it so effective. If I could tell anybody anything is if you're going to launch like it's it's not that it's got to look the coolest, catchiest picture, but it's it's you. It's got to be you. And so like anytime someone walks in, like I bleed the brand and I speak it, I live it. They they see it now all of my hat shirt everywhere because I've also fell in love with the logo.

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My sister-in-law made the logo, she's a graphic designer and it was badass, I loved it, it so different. That's what I wanted, I wanted simple letters and it literally intertwines the story. It starts with the mind, the mind is what affects the body, it's how you make the choice and that's what leads to good healthy gall swing. And so I live it, know it, everybody now that will come to work for us knows the heart of the company. They know, they live and breathe the name and so that's kind where the name came from and anything I can encourage people is like...

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Be the brand and whatever you're passionate about. you're going to be passionate about

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Brian Williams (27:36)

writing books, if you're passionate about coaching, you're passionate about fitness, you're passionate about accounting and parenting, being a mom, being a parent, being a father, whatever it is, let that be your brand, let that be your name, because you bleed it out and people fall in love with it, people follow it.

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Chris Alto (27:54)

Yeah, I think one of the recurring themes I keep hearing is just, you're just focused on having an amazing product and I'm sure that reflects the brand and vice versa. makes a lot of sense. Any major mistakes that you made, if you could go back last year at this time, any things you would have done differently?

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Brian Williams (28:11)

I love that question because I'm still so early in and it's like I'm asking that question to myself every day like what could I do and honestly I would I would have started earlier I'd have did it like I'm 31 years old and I launched it and people are like my god like you pursued it I would have did it even at 27 28 like not been afraid and because the longer and longer I wait I felt like I had to keep like putting all the ducks in a row like make sure my house is good

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Brian Williams (28:40)

So most people have to wait for their life to get in right. They wait for their debt to be right. And I get all that's good. Like it is, but like for me, it was, I kept pushing off, kept pushing on and thinking like, well I need to get the right job first. I need to get the right experience. And so if I, I'll just say do it. Like you're like wanting to take this leap. You're like, like, man, I want to change my life. Like do it. And that's, that's what I wished I'd have did earlier. And

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I wish I'd have brought more people on with me early on and I'm seeing it now and I'm so, so glad if anybody is listening to this, I would say get help, get people with you because that's when you become the best version of yourself. That's when the brand explodes the best. And I'm so glad I didn't wait five, 10 years. I'm glad I'm doing it in month four, having three people and having you, Chris and Carrie all have been unbelievable. If people do not have a software design or website design team, they need to get join Zipper now.

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just because we work with you. We don't work with, I'm not bashing Kajabi and all these other ones, but like we work with y'all and like it's the who's man like and I wish I would have done that earlier on because like I launch and then I'm like I have no idea how to build an email list. I have no idea how to make good templates. I'm like blowing you up Chris the whole time feeling terrible. But like I wish I would have brought more people early on when I went to launch.

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Chris Alto (30:06)

It makes a ton of sense. Yeah, it's one of those things I feel like you always want to have everything be perfect and then things are going to be messed up anyway. Right? So it's like, I just wish I had done this in the first place, but hindsight is 2020, I guess. Cool, man. Any last tips or things you want to mention like content you've been following or advice you might have for other people who might be on the cusp or might have just started building a business?

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Brian Williams (30:36)

Yeah, think the people that are just starting continue to learn, continue to grow, continue to reach out to people, reach out to other successful business people that you look to in your field or even other fields who've done it and learn from them, connect with them. The greatest asset that we have is our brain. It really is. So the more knowledge you can continue to instill and I get, we live in a generation right now that

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There's so much access to us. like to say that we don't have opportunity is insane because you can literally type in whatever you want to listen to. You want to learn about email marketing. You want to learn about funnel hacking. You want to learn about how to build a brand. You want to learn about how to hire people like all that's at your resources. So I would say that, but then I'd also say, protect your values, what you value. Why did you get into this for what you're doing? And for me,

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I can get emotional. I am as I'm talking, thinking about it right now because I did this because man, I want to change my life. I want it to change my kids' lives. I want to change my wife's life. I want it to change my family tree of who never were an entrepreneur. And I want it to be present. And so the worst thing I could have done was go from a job I'm working 70 hours a week to jump into being an entrepreneur and work 100 hours a week. And then I don't have any weekend off. Stay true to those values and you're going to see reward.

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I'm on the 14th weekend in a row of being off. And I'm freaking going into Thanksgiving week, like the most excited I've ever been. I can't wait to smoke a turkey tomorrow and enjoy being around with family and have no stress of anybody that doesn't show up for work or is at work or not at work. I get to, that was a core value for me was that I wanted to be involved in my kids' lives. I wanted to be superhero to my kids. I wanted to be a present father and a present dad to my wife.

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Chris Alto (32:28)

Well, sounds like you're definitely doing it. Brian, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story. guess one last question, most common mistake you see with someone's golf swing.

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Brian Williams (32:40)

Most common mistake I see with someone's golf swing is they watch so much social media and they think that their swing looks like a tiger or a roary and they don't go to a PGA professional. That's why I launched the business. And so I would say the coolest thing about social media is that it got people into golf. And I love it because the numbers are crazy. Every single day I get new people who wish they would have played golf when they were growing up. And now

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But they all have the same story. like, I typed in YouTube and I'm watching this guy. He's telling me to do something. Someone else is telling me to do that thing. And so that's why as a PGA professional, I launched it. So like I would say social media is great, but go find a PGA professional to help you out with your golf swing.

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Chris Alto (33:26)

Sweet. All right. Well, thanks so much for coming on, Brian. And we will talk to you soon.

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Brian Williams (33:33)

Chris, thank you for everything you do, I appreciate you man. Alright, you too, bye bye.

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Chris Alto (33:35)

All right, likewise, talk to you later. Bye.

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