Conversations with Brett Eaton

When I was 16 and a high school athlete, a significant back injury forced me to miss an entire year of sports (Football, Basketball, and Baseball). A few months after the injury, my father passed away suddenly, and I believe those two events were the foundation for how the rest of my life would be lived.

Looking back on that difficult time in my life, I know it was where my appreciation for being healthy and consistently moving your body came from. Knowing how badly it feels to have movement, physical activity, and training taken away from me, it’s something I appreciate more than the average person.

I have a firsthand perspective of how abruptly life can end, and how suddenly your whole life can change in an instant. It has given me gratitude for the simple things in life and a different outlook on taking opportunities and risks now, while we have the chance.

The biggest risk came in the form of leaving a stable job and starting my own Coaching Business. After 12 unfulfilling years in the fitness industry, I decided it was time to chase a passion and goal of mine to start my own self-employed Coaching and Speaking business. Almost seven years later, I would say that risk was one of the best decisions of my life.

As a High-Performance Coach, I now have the ability to help people all over the world overcome their own limitations and challenges, and get them to a point where they are more clear on what they want, more productive than ever, and help them achieve their pursuit of success with a pursuit of fulfillment!

Last year I took another risk when I decided to move from the Washington, DC Area to SD to fulfill a dream of mine to live near the ocean. Thanks to another difficult lesson I learned when I was 16, I know how important it is to not save all your big dreams and plans for retirement. Like my dad, and for so many others, that opportunity for retirement and time to do all the things he wanted to do and see in life never came.

I believe I have a gift of being able to inspire people to play bigger and believe in themselves more than they previously thought was possible. However, that doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by getting crystal clear on what you want your life to look like and then following that up with specific action.

As soon as you decide to start your own business, there is this shift that needs to happen. The ones that make this shift as quickly as possible are the ones who tend to be successful. That shift is going from an “employee mindset” to an “Owner/CEO mindset.” Why this makes or breaks most businesses is because you have so many decisions to make on a daily basis that the longer you take to make those decisions, the longer it will take your business to be successful.

Most people also think it’s going to be this smooth transition when you leave your job, and you are going to replace one okay job with one DREAM JOB. HAHA, I wish it were that easy!

For me, I traded one unfulfilling job for eight different jobs that helped me make money. Did I LOVE all 8, no. But did those eight allow me to begin the pursuit of my passion and start my business on my terms? YES. Was it worth it? HECK YES.

Eventually, I was able to narrow the eight down to 5, 3, and now I am comfortably making the income needed to focus solely on the areas I love, or my ZOG or zone of genius as we call it in the coaching world, while outsourcing the parts of my business I do not love.

There is also this thing called “imposter syndrome” that I could probably write a whole book on, but I will save that for another day.

The coaching industry and the media love talking about “doing more” and “go go go.” While yes, being productive is absolutely vital to success, I think a huge missed opportunity for most people is evaluating where you should NOT be spending your time. I steer my clients to focus on where they are putting their time and energy that they should NOT be. That frees up time and energy to be put in the right areas. That is how we become more productive. Not by doing MORE, but by doing the important, fulfilling things!

As a former client once said, “You are the perfect blend of tough love and compassion. If you had a T-shirt it should say, Tough Love with a Hug at the end.” I will always remember that. She is right.

People and Businesses work with me because they want results. In order to achieve those results, we need accountability. If I let them off the hook every time we bailed on something, I wouldn’t be doing my job. However, instead of beating someone down every time they fail, let’s evaluate why we are failing. Were our expectations too high? Are we overcommitting? Are we spending our time in the right places? Do we need better boundaries?

You can be wildly successful without being perfect. However, we must make progress, and that is what I strive for with every one of my clients.