With a Little Help from His Friends
When Ryan Mathie joined forces with Adrian Shiel, Tina Brigley and Maxwell Nee to form the nucleus that is High Performing Coach, he had what he refers to as an ‘Unshakeable Belief’ in the impact they could make.
I spoke to Founder & CEO Mathie about the importance of our beliefs and working as a team, while he shared his own journey from coaching for an organization, to owning his own.
You gave a Personal Breakthrough testimony about your journey from devastation to transformation. Can you share that with us?
“Yes, I remember. That was like my awakening. I’ve been like a ball in the pinball machine for years. I was at the effect of life and was always blaming others, the circumstances, life … I had this moment where I realized the single consistent factor in all of my ups/downs/successes/failures – was me. My whole life started flashing in front of me. I started to do things I had never done before and it was natural. I began telling the truth to myself and others, I got responsible for everything that was going on around me, cleaned up my messes from the past and started putting things ‘right.’ I could also see I wasn’t the only one that had gotten lost in this unconsciousness and all I wanted to do was give away all I had learned and would learn – I was driven by a deep hunger to contribute and never looked back.”
You had relocated to the US – working and coaching for an internationally-renowned organization, when you took the risk to grow independently. What were the factors behind that decision?
“It was an incredible experience and at the same time, it was inside someone else’s world and as I grew stronger and raised my own level of awareness, I was ready to do what I always wanted – build my own kingdom. This meant more freedom and life on my own terms. When I came out of that environment, I didn’t have a direction nor much concept of being an independent coach, because I didn’t have that reality before. The urge to coach kept calling and that’s when I began – and started charging £50 a session.”
Upon that transformation, you started High Performing Coach (HPC). What was the process behind the expansion of that?
“I did everything that was required of me to learn about the business of coaching, including hiring and working with some of the best talent in the industry. Eventually I started working with coaches because of the amount of experience I had at that point. I’d already accumulated over 14,000 hours of coaching/training/development on all sides of the fence – my business quickly started to thrive. Eventually this led me to working more and more with coaches -my kind of people, and this was very natural to me. I loved that I got to empower them to be even better and make the kind of contribution that would have an exponential effect.”
How did Adrian and Max come into the fold?
“As I said, I had this burning desire and calling to build something bold and great. Meanwhile, Adrian and Max had a similar kind of burning ambition and had begun working on their expression of that – helping people become entrepreneurs. We clicked right away and saw the complimentary experience and skills we all had. Soon after, we set-off on the road in full partnership. Initially I immersed myself in their business vision but after a short time, I could see there could be a slight pivot that would work tremendously. We had a meeting, I shared my vision, they loved it and we got straight to work under the banner, High-Performing Coach, solving the biggest problem many coaches face – creating clients.”
What about Tina Brigley?
“Tina was one of our clients, who came through our program. She went from not creating any clients to making $105,000 in five months! She was an absolute rockstar, was inspiring, with a huge presence and possessed a lot of uniqueness, especially around her ability to show up online creating content that connects. It goes without saying we could have benefited from female energy in the team! So we had a conversation and I invited her to join us as a co-founder – that was a fun conversation!”
When was this?
“We brought Tina in, in January 2020. At that point we had been building for a year and the business had a solid foundation of growth, successful clients and we were becoming more known amongst the rise of new coaches.”
It wasn’t without it’s hard work, though…
“Yeah, that has been a journey. At the beginning I was doing all the initial calls with our new potential clients, and the majority of the training while Max and Adrian were booking all the calls and doing the mechanics – we were playing full out!”
And this required a huge amount of energy on my part, having powerful conversations with new potential clients, all day, every day. It was exhausting at times, but mostly it was thrilling. Looking back this was one of the most significant and important parts of our journey and laid the foundation of all that was to come. All my training, all my experience and all my own personal growth was being used to its absolute fullest – It was exciting, validating and very rewarding.
I stood for each and every person who came on a call with me and facilitated life changing breakthroughs with any and all who were open and ready. I held space as they faced their darkest fears, and most limiting beliefs and together we caused breakthrough, after breakthrough. Their courage and willingness was, and is remarkable – our clients are the real heroes and it’s because of them and their determination to transform their lives, that we exist.
Months and years on I still get clients emailing me about ‘that call’. They went on to create truly incredible results in their life and in their coaching businesses – they inspire me. Now it’s mainly Tina, Nina and Max on the calls holding the bar high for our potential clients and it’s them that get to receive the appreciation of ‘that call’ – it’s amazing for me to witness this.
How did HPC grow to the point where you could take a step back every now and then to focus on your other endeavours, such as publishing your book, and your workshops?
When the pandemic hit we made some strategic changes to introduce a program that was more suitable for the fact that people had a greater concern than normal regarding investment. We called it ‘Launch’ which would later become the foundational program of our business leading on to a much deeper and longer journey in our Mastery Program.
This was a real explosive time for us and our clients – many of whom went on to create a lot of clients too AND really big numbers, like $20K, $30K, $60k! All of that in a three month program from a starting point of zero revenue and little/no business.
We’re very proud of the amount of clients that go on to do incredibly well and cultivate sustainability in their business after the process too. We see a lot of big numbers like $10K+ per month, $25K+ per month – one of our clients just had her first $50k month!
And to add some context, when we talk about money at HPC, we refer to it as a measure of impact and as a measure of growth – so these numbers represent a lot of all that.
Our very own business quadrupled since the lockdowns and it continues to grow.
AND a point came when I needed to slow down a bit…
So I actually stepped out of CEO and created a role as a Chairman with Max stepping up into my role – a responsibility, and opportunity he really wanted. As I needed a breather it was a great chance for something new for us all.
It also gave me a chance to write my first solo book, “High-Performing Coach – How To Create High-Fee Clients & Build A Sustainable Business From The Heart” which is due out around March 2022.
During that time and in that process more people could step up and help laid the groundwork for growth. Max, a young 26 year old at that point, showed immense courage and tenacity, grabbed the wheel with both hands and put the foot down – he did an amazing job. Tina took on the role of being the face and leader of our events, as well as holding the bar high on our breakthrough calls with new clients. Adrian kept the mechanics solid during the growth and the transition – not an easy feat at all! Like I always say, thank God for Adrian.
And there was Nina, another one of our clients, who was struggling as a coach. She really transformed in our program and I could see it – it was palpable. So, I started calling her Ninja instead, and invited her to join our team – now she’s one of our most senior coaches, heads up the breakthrough team and actually leads some of our events too.
“It also created a gap for more powerful coaches to join us, serve our clients and lead our programs and that’s when we met Greg, I call him our Knight in shining armour. His love for people and ability to hold them to their highest potential is remarkable.
We now have an incredible team at HPC, all who love what we do and why we do it – we now have almost 40 people around the world and each and everyone of them are kind, committed, talented – it’s a fantastic team and I’m really proud of that.
Come August 2021, after a good rest, a lot of personal growth and fresh new perspectives, we looked at the business, highlighted the areas that could be improved, got clear as a team about where we wanted to go and the best way to get there and that’s when I proposed to return as CEO and all said ‘aye!.”
You’ve mentioned in the past that – despite the plethora of life coaches, many of them struggle to succeed because they get stuck. Why is that?
“They get stuck because they’re simply unprepared for the world of building a coaching business or in many cases, being an entrepreneur despite their background.
Having invested a lot of time, money and energy in their coaching training, only to walk out into the real world and realize they simply don’t know how to create clients – this can be very challenging.
I went through it all myself and in my own way so I know it like the back of my hand.
For example, lots of successful Corporate leaders are now turning to coaching because they see the opportunity for more freedom and a greater impact. However, when you’ve never built a coaching business before and no one has effectively shown you how, it can be very tough for the vast majority. So much is new and there is a lot to learn and to develop – this applies in the majority of cases, regardless of the accomplishments from previous careers. See, Coaching is a very unique business that requires a huge amount of willingness, authenticity, vulnerability, courage and powerful coaching skills AND strategy – those who recognise the most effective way to tread this path is to employ expert help to guide them, and those who make this an urgent priority are the ones that create success and impact with more ease and a lot more velocity.”
So yeah, it can be hard and many will struggle, but they really don’t have to for long if they are open to making a shift – struggling is simply a function of a set of limiting beliefs that have yet to be revealed and let go of. All they really need is a breakthrough, just like their own clients and potential clients’ need. It’s important coaches get that, they need to breakthrough whatever stands in their way – that’s the secret really. It’s not funnels, landing pages etc, it’s their ongoing commitment to their ongoing transformation – I call this being the Real Deal.
How invaluable are Adrian, Max, and Tina?
“We’re a team – we created all of this together. We are actually an incredibly well balanced team too. It’s like football or any team sport – you need players stronger in certain positions to make a great team. It’s no use having a team of only great defenders or goal scorers – you need everyone playing well in their best positions.
We actually did a Wealth Dynamics report which assesses your characteristics in a team and where you are naturally best placed to excel. There are four key quadrants in this report; I’m the star creator, Max is the supporter, Tina’s the controller, Adrian is the mechanic, and together this makes a perfectly balanced team with respect to that particular test as we fill each and every key quadrant.
So it all very magically came together.”
Wonderful. It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Ryan, thank you so much.
“My pleasure. For anyone wanting to create something to be proud of – whether you are a coach or have other dreams, it can be done – it starts with a willingness to believe…”
