We were lucky to catch up with Eric Cogorno recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Eric thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.

A FEW things that have helped me a ton what I wish I knew sooner….

1. Focus first and foremost on personal development. Making YOU better as you improve yourself and your “skills” for work. If you want to make a million dollars…..YOU…..need to be the kind of person who makes a million dollars.

2. Focus on WHO not HOW. Find OTHER people to work with right away….people to supplement the things you are not good at.

3. Gain CLARITY on what you want your dream life to look like in 5,10,20,50 years. Reverse engineer what you want to do to get to that dream end goal.

What does your perfect day look like?
Who are you with?
What are you doing?
Where are you?

I wasn’t clear enough on this early enough and so I floated for awhile not making any real progress.

Once I did a Jim Rohn Goal Setting Workshop and got REALLY CLEAR on what I wanted my dream life to look like 10 years from now everything changed for me.

Not only spend time thinking about it—-write it down….and spend time DAILY….VISUALIZING yourself in that dream life in the future.

Eric , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve been a golf coach for the past 15 years (I’m 35)…so I started pretty early while I was still in college.

I used to work at the golf course and had just about every job imaginable…..picking balls on the range, working in the pro shop, washing carts, etc. You name it…I did it.

One day I was picking balls on the range (making about $7/hour) at that point…..and I remember it was a hot August day in Pennsylvania…..and the range I was picking balls on is very bumpy. So imagine I’m out there driving that golf cart picking up range balls with people hitting balls at me left and right. I’m hot….not very happy to be there….

And when I pulled the cart to the side of the range there was a golf pro there (my now good friend and mentor Paul) who make an off hand comment that he had just made $50 giving a golf lesson.

I was watching them a bit while I was driving (Paul and this student)……they were standing under a shaded area on the range….laughing, cracking jokes….hitting a few balls here and there…..it looked EASY and like they were having a high old time.

Meanwhile I’m out here miserable picking these balls….

Well it didn’t take long for me to do some quick math and realize that I needed to work a full 8 hours to make the same amount of money that he made for that 30 minute lesson.

I talked with Paul that very day and convinced him to let me start giving lessons the next week :)

That started my journey.

At the beginning I stunk at coaching (like you do when you start anything)…..this led me to a 10 year obsession to get great at my craft….coaching.

After about a decade I was feeling burnt out and stuck. I was doing about $80,000 per year in personal income but knew I was capable of doing more.

Lots of things came together within the next few months and we launched our YouTube channel Jan 1 2017…..we have since built an online audience of over 500,000 people and a business that does over $1,000,000 per year in profit.

Thank goodness Paul told me about that $50 :)

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Trying to do everything by myself.

When you first start ANYTHING you are usually alone. You wear A LOT of different hats.

What you learn is this can only take you so far. It keeps you small.

To scale anything you do to its potential….you need to think BEYOND yourself.

I read a book called “WHO NOT HOW” by Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan and it changed my outlook on everything.

The premise is when someone comes up don’t think HOW can I do this…..think WHO can do this for me (or help me)

I have re read that book 2-3 times per year since I got it. Highly recommend!

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I was feeling burnt out with my in person coaching in 2015/2016 and decided I want to shift thing online and focus on building an online audience, brand and ultimately business.

Building an online brand and growing socials (we have over 500,000 followers between YouTube and Instagram) is something I had to learn as we went and I’ve learned a few universal truths to help if you’re looking to grow these as well

1. Consistent posting for a LONG period of time is inevitable.
-We posted every Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday at 10am EST for 8 years.

2. Model Success
-Dont copy….but MODEL people who are successful in your space and have the followings they want. What are their video topics? How do they start the videos? What are the titles and thumbnails? How long are the videos? How do they close? etc

Bonus…..READ THE COMMENTS ON THEIR VIDEOS…..this will give you all the info you need to come up with your own ideas (I have done this every Sunday for 8 years)

3. Prioritize it in your schedule
-We film for YouTube and Instagram every Monday at 12pm EST….for 8 years. Its the first thing we do each week

4. Watch each set of videos you make and try and make ONE micro improvement for each set (better title, thumbnail, lighting, intro, etc)

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cogornogolf.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericcogorno/?hl=en
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ericcogornogolf

Image Credits

N/a