It was going to be hard to convince anyone that I needed to make a large investment of time away from the business with money that we didn’t have. But we went for it anyway. Wow, what a leap of faith! It was not long after that our E-Myth Coach called and a fantastic, life-changing relationship began.

A Life-Changing Relationship

Through my coach and the E-Myth program, I learned how to manage people, manage money, manage time and manage my business as a whole. Within 10 months we turned the business around from the negative $250.000 operating income into a net profit of $85.000! We had a fantastic company culture, our membership numbers grew, our guests stayed longer at our facility spending more money happily with us, our academy courses were full and had waiting lists… And most importantly for me, I ended up only having to go in for one afternoon per week and the rest of the time I could spend with my wife and by this time two baby girls.

I had the good fortune of meeting Michael Gerber once at an E-Myth convention and I told him the story of me thinking the coaching program was too expensive for us. I also told him that after that first 10 months, I realized that the value of the course is priceless. I asked why they didn’t charge more for the program, telling him that I would now pay so much more for it knowing what I know now. He told me that was the problem, “you only know once you know, and until you know, you don’t know!”

Once I grasped the E-Myth way of running a business, I realized that I wanted to do other things in life and that I could apply these principles to any type of venture I wanted. I decided to take another leap of faith and move to North America to start a new life in the real estate business, something I had wanted to do since reading the Rich Dad, Poor Dad books; but something I did not have the courage to do. I believed I needed to stick to what I knew, namely golf. With the new found freedom and confidence E-Myth gave me, I had the courage to make the move. I now have various real estate investment companies and am involved in development projects internationally (that included golf facilities).

Needless to say I apply the E-Myth principles to each and every area of my new businesses and always have my coach’s words of wisdom ringing in my ears. I always knew that I could do it, but I was also painfully aware, deep down, that I needed guidance and assistance. It took me a lot of time, effort, money and energy to finally find that which I needed. And thanks to E-Myth and my coach, I am now living the kind of life that I would really call “a dream!”

A Golf Mentality

I am a golf professional first and foremost; which taught me how to be an individualist and an extreme competitor. I was always the first to arrive at the practice facility in the early hours of the morning and the last to leave late in the night. That is what is required to be the best. In golf, no one can “do your push-ups for you,” no one else can take the pressure off you, and no one else can hit your shot for you. Ultimately you are completely and solely responsible for everything you do on the golf course.

Needless to say, once I had my “Entrepreneurial Seizure” and decided to move into the business side of golf, these decidedly ingrained skills did not lend well to that new world.

In the business world, leadership, teamwork, company culture and many other group-related skills are critical. As a professional golfer, I showed the qualities necessary to be able to “go out on my own” from an early age, therefore I believed I inherently also had the right entrepreneurial characteristics. In truth, my skills were very raw and built around the belief that I could do it better than everyone else and that I could do it alone.

Turning My Love of Golf into a Business

Skipping forward, I went through many transitions in the business world: from teaching golf myself as a one-man show; to forming a golf academy with partners that ended up being an international venture teaching some of the finest golf professionals in the world—golfers who are now members of the world’s elite tours.

Finally, I started my own golf facility in downtown Berlin, Germany. A unique golf facility in the capital's downtown area with everything one could expect from a driving range with lounges, terraces, undercover bays, open air bays, putting and chipping greens along with bunkers and pitching areas. A fully equipped golf academy with video analysis studios, group training rooms and a fully stocked pro-shop with state of the art custom fitting systems...

I had achieved this all by myself: I came up with the concept, I raised the capital, constructed each of the business areas contained within the company and turned it from a paper concept to an operating entity that produced large revenues. I thought I had achieved my dream.

When my Dream Become my Nightmare

Using my early-learned golf practice methods, I was the first to arrive at the business in the early hours of the morning before opening. I worked on everything all day and was the last of my 20-person staff to leave late at night. And as with my golf, I did that seven days a week. Such is the nature of the sport and the mindset it produces.

I did this for three years straight and at the same time managed to get married and have my first child – I saw very little of either my wife or our new born. It was at this time that I was diagnosed with a severe case of burnout syndrome.

The Cure

I decided I needed to do something about it; so I took a three-week vacation to India to a health clinic to recover and took a book with me. That book was The E-Myth Revisited.

Upon returning to my business once again full of energy, I had to make a firm commitment to change and not get myself into the same predicament. I discussed with my wife the E-Myth philosophy and asked her to read the book too. She did and agreed to support me in making yet another transition. I went online and looked for anything I could get my hands on that was related to the E-Myth. It did not take long for me to find the Mastery Impact! coaching program. With both of us committed to the philosophy which included such novel ideas as Delegation, Finance (Something I was terrible at; after all, in golf you really only need to count up to six!), Marketing, Management, and so on... All the things missing in my business.

Making the Investment

The first hurdle came very quickly, however. At this time my big money-making business that was eating my life away had a negative operating income of $250,000.