In this interview, Omar Zenhom talks with a high‑earning business coach (Speaker B) about the rapid evolution of his coaching company during the COVID‑19 pandemic and the subsequent crisis of personal fulfillment. The pandemic forced the coach to shift a live, multi‑city event to an online format, which succeeded and propelled the business into a period of hyper‑growth, expanding the team to 36 people—including a nine‑person sales force, coaches, and support staff. As the market normalized, the coach felt disconnected from his core work, overwhelmed by meetings, and powerless despite being the owner. He realized he was spending his time on tasks he hated and was avoiding difficult conversations with staff he had hired and befriended. After reflecting on what he didn’t want, he, with input from his wife and a close friend, decided to radically redesign the company. Over a 90‑day sprint, he eliminated the entire sales team, reduced staff from 36 to 8, and refocused his role on creating new products and engaging with clients—activities he loves. The transformation shifted the business from a “monster” that looked impressive on paper to one that feels right to him, emphasizing personal fulfillment over external perception.
Chapters
I want to hear a little bit more about, you know, the business that you built. Why did you hate it? How did you make the decision to change? What were the steps? Were you just like, everybody out of my office? No way.
I've been doing this for a long time, and I've— for someone who likes variety as much as I do, it's kind of weird that I've kind of got the same business as I started back then. It's— I mean, it's morphed and evolved. I'm on like version 58.2 or whatever, but it's been a, you know, a stable growing thing. COVID hit a few years ago, and we're in this amazing situation where we had a We used to do an event every March, July, November, and the March event was in Australia and then 2 weeks later in the States. And so we did the event in Melbourne. It was amazing. Clients from all over. And then in between the Melbourne event and 2 weeks later in LA, COVID hit and the borders got shut to the States and Tom Hanks got COVID. And it was like, okay, well, Tom Hanks got COVID.
It's in Australia.
It's in Australia, right? So we had to redo the whole event, like figure out how to do it on the internet and not make it suck. And B, all of the content that I taught in Melbourne now is irrelevant because the whole world's like been rug pulled from us. And so we're inventing this whole new event and a new delivery style, and it went super, super well. I think it was just like lucky timing that, you know, those— that happened right at that moment. And so we had a bit of an idea about what to do and we were able to lead people through it.
Hmm.
So all of a sudden we get this reputation as like, these are the guys who can help us in this weird time, and the business takes off. And because I'm a better, you know, face than CEO, our solution to all the growth was let's just You know, hire some more people and throw people at it. I'm not systemized. And so we threw all these people at it and the business grew.
Are you talking about sales teams? What are you talking about?
I'm talking about sales team. I'm talking about coaches. I'm talking about support people. I'm talking about everything. We grew to like 36 people, which for me is a lot on the team. And, you know, COVID was an awful time to live through, but business-wise it was great for us. And then it disappears and I'm left with this heavy business with a bunch of folks. And I kind of lost— not kind of, I lost my mojo bigly. replaced myself out of a bunch of the jobs like you're supposed to. So I wasn't, I wasn't doing much of the coaching. I was still running like the teach sessions, not doing much of the coaching, not doing any of the sales because we had a sales team that did that, like 9 people, not involved in the marketing very much.
Yeah.
And like, frankly, I didn't really know what my job was anymore. And so I'm in this lost place where I've got this big business that looks great on paper, but my weeks are like, if you're not doing the coaching or the sales or the marketing or the whatever, what's left? Well, the meetings to organize the people. And I hate meetings.
Yeah.
So I remember just being in this funk. It's like lost my mojo. And I didn't realize I felt really powerless in my own business, which is a weird thing to say. I'm the boss and I could do whatever the hell I want, but I completely didn't feel it. And one day I jump on Zoom because once a month we get the whole team together to do this all-hands thing. And you know when you're on Zoom and you can see all the Brady Bunch faces of all the people?
Yeah.
And I noticed that I can click to page 2 and there's like 2 Zoom pages full of folks. I'm like, shit, man, when did we become a 2-page Zoom company? I didn't say this bit out loud, but in the back of my head, I'm like, what the fuck do all you guys do? I was like, I don't want to be a 2-page Zoom company anymore. No wonder it felt really heavy. And so afterwards, I got off the Zoom and I chatted with Tony, who you know, and Kirin Marie, my wife, who you know. I was like, I don't want this anymore. I didn't know what I wanted instead, but I knew what I didn't want.
Which is a good start.
Often it's really, it's much easier. If you make a list of what you don't want, then what you do want is probably kind of the opposite of that. And so I sat down with these 2 amazing women and figured out what it might look like on the other side. And I realized I'd been like a year and a half in a funk, just like tolerating all this shit in my business that drained my energy. And my week was like Casey Neistat says, it's not about how much time you spend doing what you love, it's about how little time you spend doing what you hate. And I was spending all my time doing what I hate. And I just didn't know that it was possible to change it, which is stupid to say, but true.
It's also, you don't want to disappoint people.
Most of it was just hanging on to people because—
You hired them.
Because I hired them and we'd become friends and I felt like really uncomfortable. I'm a conflict avoider. And so I didn't want to have awkward conversations with people. And so I just put up with this thing that I hated. And I thought about shutting the whole thing down, just keeping Boardroom, my VIP group, like me and an assistant. And I was like, okay, but half the people in Boardroom I only met because You know, they joined us when they were smaller in Black Belt or smaller again in clients. And it's like, it's not the— like, I love the clients and I love the programs. It was just like the way my week was running, I didn't like. Watched an episode, a great talk by Jason Fried from Basecamp, who I love. He's like my Elvis. And he talked about how— he's talking to a bunch of software guys.
Yeah.
I know this is rambly, but I promise it'll be—
Worth it.
Hopefully it'll be worth it. Talking about how like software designers design the product, but they never think about the product, the ultimate product, which is the business that they get to work in every day. So I grabbed him for an interview and secretly I was like, what can I get from this for me? Because I feel like I've built amazing client products, but the product I'm in every day doesn't feel fun. And then Tony and Karen Marie helped get a vision for what it could look like on the other side. And then we're only like, from making the decision to a completely different business was 90 days away.
Right.
And I spent more time not making the changes than making the changes.
Yeah.
And 90 days later, the business was completely different. Sales team of 9 to sales team of 0, not a single setter, closer, no sales calls, no nothing. Team went from 36 to 8. And most importantly, my role went from, I don't know what my job is and I'm in meetings all the time, to I get to do the 2 things I love, which is make new things and hang out with cool people and share the lessons from those 2 things to everybody. That's liberating.
100%. And I think one of the things that I love about this journey is you recognize the fact that, hey, like, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. Like, you know, this doesn't feel right. And a lot of us, we build these monsters called businesses and we confuse what we're supposed to do with what we want to do.
Yeah. This is a quote from Pinterest, right? You know, one of those Pinterest inspirational quotes that actually landed. And my friend Dan put me onto it. a different Dan. And it was like, I'm much more interested in how my business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else. And I heard that, I was like, oh my God, that's it. So I don't really care what anyone else thinks. Like, I'm the dude in this life 24/7. Yeah, let's build something that feels great.
