Glenn Harper: Well, everyone, welcome to another edition of Empowering
Entrepreneurs, The Harper Company Way.
This is Glen Harper,
Julie Smith: Julie Smith.
Glenn Harper: And we've got a special guest today.
We've got this guy named Kyle Morris, a fellow entrepreneur
who's the owner of The Golf Room and The Golf Room
Everywhere, headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, not Dublin,
Ireland. For all our Saint Patty days fans out there.
Welcome, Kyle. How are you.
Kyle Morris: Going? Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Hey, Jim.
Glenn Harper: You bet. He's a serial entrepreneur who's always looking for
an opportunity to put his skill set to use.
He's one of those psychos like most of entrepreneurs.
And the spare time, he dedicates his time and passion to
his wonderful wife and children.
Even though he has the stature of a soccer player, he has
the skill set of being one of the top golfers in the world,
as well as having a panache for being one of the top 50
golf instructors in the world, as well as the number one
instructor in Ohio. Is that true?
Kyle Morris: Yep. And I played professional golf for what would have been
about 8 to 9 years and then played 40 weeks a year and 20
countries with kids and wives or wives.
Wife. There's only.
Glenn Harper: One tournament about.
Kyle Morris: Coffee out. Yeah, how about that?
Glenn Harper: All right.
Kyle Morris: So we live in Arizona and played 40 weeks a year in 2014.
And then my wife said, because we were traveling the first
six months of my first born Adler for his life, he was
sleeping in hotel rooms, so he was born June 9th.
We left June 23rd, and he didn't sleep in his own bed until
the middle of November.
And then that next year she goes, That's not happening
anymore. So then we we moved home back to Ohio from
Scottsdale, where I'm originally from, still playing and
then started teaching and kind of felt God moving me into a
different direction, which is where you and I had all of.
Glenn Harper: Our and here we are.
Kyle Morris: Now. We're doing this.
Glenn Harper: Well. As a fellow golfer myself, I'm I'm probably I could
probably get within 18 strokes of you on a on a on a round.
But one of my, you know, knowing that the Masters is just
around the corner, that means tax season is almost over for
me. So that's how I've been managing tax seasons for the
last 33 years is Masters.
Oh, I got another week of tax year.
Right, right. So I, I had took a survey and I found some
people and I'm like, give me some questions that you would
like to ask, you know, a golfing person like a Kyle and
this is what came back.
So I don't I don't know.
Is it true that when you're a touring professional, you
witnessed so many hackers on the golf course that you felt
compelled to give up your golf and career to teach hackers
how to play 18 holes under 7 hours while straightening out
their slice. Yeah, got to like that.
That's what you did. All right.
Julie Smith: And these are really Glen's questions, by the way.
Kyle Morris: He's really actually, they're just personal connection
questions, I guess. Am I okay if I play 7 hours of 210?
Glenn Harper: This is this is not about me, I'm telling you.
Do you prefer to wear the tight fitting golf attire to hide
your physique, or do you like to wear the baggy clothes to
hide your physique like we were in the 1980s?
Kyle Morris: Well, suns out, guns out.
So it's one.
Glenn Harper: Of those guys. All right, polyester and the hell with the
cotton. All right, I get it.
Julie Smith: That's what slows Glenn down on his golf game is the baggy
clothes from 1980.
Glenn Harper: But they're so comfortable.
Yeah.
Kyle Morris: I cut her. In bucks with that.
They used to wear in the Ryder Cup back in 1985.
Glenn Harper: Ashworth is so cocky.
Ashworth Was golf an excuse to walk around chasing a ball
while talking to yourself?
So know what a question. You're being an introvert.
Kyle Morris: Definitely not an introvert.
Okay. That would be one thing that no one could ever say
that I was. Was an introvert.
Glenn Harper: Good. What's your dream?
Golf course to play?
Kyle Morris: Well, definitely be Augusta.
It was one of those things when I was playing, I said I was
never going to if and I was offered it once and turned it
down, being a moron back when I was playing.
And I said, if I'm going to go to a guest, I'm either going
to go at that point as a player.
And then I was working.
And then when I started teaching, I was working with a PGA
Tour player who won.
And then but that was the year during COVID and it just
didn't work out and blah, blah, blah.
But I wanted to always go as a player or a coach.
But now if someone asks me, I go, I'm going.
Glenn Harper: I get to that. That is that's an amazing conviction because
that's like saying, hey, I'm that good.
I should be down there and earn my way down there.
Yeah, it's like.
Kyle Morris: A way to reward myself.
Glenn Harper: Yeah, that's so cool.
Julie Smith: But beyond that, what was your favorite course you played as
a player?
Kyle Morris: There was a course in Montevideo, Uruguay that I played.
It was basically a course in the middle of the city, which
actually just so happened to be the week where I walked the
streets for about 4 hours and said, I'm done.
So it was an amazing week.
I like walk down the street with my bag.
So imagine someone walking down the middle of New York City
with your golf bag on.
Glenn Harper: It seems kind of normal.
Kyle Morris: Yeah, it's a normal thing.
And then that week I ended up, I, I had to fly down there
because I wasn't in the Uruguayan open, so I went down to
qualify. So I spent 1800 dollars, flew 17 hours to qualify
in which in the qualifier I have, I had to go into a
playoff because I shot 71.
It was like. Three guys got in out of 145 guys, 44 guys
teeing off or playing.
So I go down there, I have to qualify.
So I'm either going to have to like make a birdie like in
this playoff hole or I have to call my wife and said, Hey,
by the way, I spent $2,000.
I flew down here.
I'm not even in the event I'm flying home.
So so I ended up going, qualifying, playing.
I did okay.
But that was kind of the week where I just said, you know,
I'm done.
Julie Smith: What was that aha moment, though, as you walked those
streets?
Kyle Morris: I think it's to be honest, it was there was some you know,
Leslie and I just having discussions that it was hard for
Wesley, you know, rightfully so.
She had two young kids at the house under the age of two,
raising them by herself, essentially.
And I'm on the road three weeks that year.
And I was just like, this is not what I and, you know, this
is not how I see the next 20 years of my life going because
I want to be a father.
So so that was in 2014.
And then that winter I started teaching in 20 like December
and January of 2015.
And then by about a month and a half in I was teaching like
20 hours a week and it just grew faster than I want.
But what really happened, which is really the people that
are listening to this, what they want to kind of know about
was essentially the way it worked is when I moved home from
from Scottsdale, this this buddy of mine, he was more of an
acquaintance. He goes, Hey, one of the deals with my wife
was, hey, if we move back to Columbus, I need to be able to
build like an indoor facility.
One of my good buddies was Kevin Streelman, and he had,
like, a man cave in his basement.
So I said, Hey, I need to build a man cave like you can't
play professional golf and like, hit balls at, you know,
sports Ohio or Westerville driving range.
Right. Like, they can't be my my way of getting on tour.
So so when I came home, he goes on my way back, he goes,
Hey, I've got this little place like this little room that
you could practice out of.
And I was like, Oh, wow, that saves me 50,000 bucks.
That's amazing. And then when I was there, I started
hitting balls and he goes, Hey, you know, if you want, we
should get people. You could teach some lessons on the side
because like, you can only practice inside for 2 hours and
then like, what else are you going to do then?
And then he goes and then he goes, if you want.
We could also, like, get people to rent this bay out to
like hit balls and practice and I'll just $1 that in his
words. He's like, basically $1 is better than no dollars.
I'm not going to do it. So if you want it, we'll just split
the profit. 5050 So I was like, Huh.
So like at that quick moment, like my brain started to go
like switch gears into massive entrepreneur mode and I
would go to like restaurants.
And I knew that every customer that called the phone was
basically worth 1250 $7 in lifetime value.
So I would go to dinner like Hyde Park and I'd accidentally
leave a like flyer or brochure in the bathroom thinking
maybe they'll see it and they'll be like, Oh my gosh, I'll
call this place. This looks amazing.
So like, I just started to do this and then I just went
into overdrive. That was in the spring and summer of 2015.
And then I went to him and said, Hey, I actually just want
to buy all your assets and I'm going to build this thing
out. And now we've got I've got it went from one bay in the
in a CrossFit gym in a kitchen to then I opened it in 2016
with one bay and then we went to two bays and then three
bays and then six bays and then seven bays.
And then now I've got, which I will unveil soon down the
road, but I've got a really, really big thing in store.
I took the whole thing online, which is called which you
had mentioned and called the golf room everywhere where we
have 18 coaches teaching full time online, we teach 5000
lessons a month all over the world.
I think 17% of our population of our base comes from
Europe. I bought another company called College Golf Guide,
which is kind of like a.
It's another business in regards of junior golfers to help
placement, to help them find the right schools.
And then I've got I'm in the midst of negotiating buying
another company, which could happen in the next 30 days.
Glenn Harper: Do you feel like.
Kyle Morris: A serial entrepreneur might be.
Glenn Harper: A good. Do you feel like you should get some help with this?
I mean, because that's why you're here.
That's it. Because it's it's a funny thing when you see an
entrepreneur and, you know, they get the bug and obviously
the commitment to be an athlete of playing golf and what it
takes the mental grind to do that probably gave you, I
guess, the confidence in your own abilities to go out and
be an entrepreneur because you're like, Well, I'm not going
to fail at this. I'm going to just do something different.
I'm going to nail it. I mean, I agree.
Kyle Morris: I think that for me and this sounds I don't know, it sounds
weird, but there's two things that kind of reflecting
because, you know. I reflect a lot about a lot of the stuff
is that I think that for the business side of things
compared to golf, golf was different in the fact that you
could practice your face off and it doesn't necessarily
mean you win that.
Glenn Harper: You can't tell me that everybody believes that they
practice.
Kyle Morris: To the podcast that day to day.
Sometimes you have to be good and you also need a little
bit of luck. So for business, business was a little bit
more like school. Like, you know, I worked really, really
hard at school. I never got to be in my life.
And it was just like if you study, you get an A and if not,
like you're.
Glenn Harper: Just so you got CS, is that what you're saying?
Never got to be so.
Kyle Morris: So for for business, it was kind of like if I just work
harder than everybody and, you know, apply and continue to
study and learn and stuff like that, I'll just I'll win the
race because it's just it's kind of, you know, hard work
actually goes a really long ways.
And I think that the world, which is why the entrepreneurs
that are listening this, why they are entrepreneurs, is
there's people who talk about doing things and then there's
people who actually do things.
There's a lot of the world is filled with people who talk,
but very few people actually do.
They go, Man, I'd really like to do that.
It's like, well. Just they man.
Up and just do it already because you have to just like
golf, like you have to have you can't have a fear of
failing to where the point is, you have to understand what
the bottom of the pit is.
So in my heart of hearts and soul souls, if I go, you know
what, Glenn? Like if the golf room fails and the golf room
everywhere fails and college golf fails and this other
business fails, you know, less.
And I will just go live in a little 750 square foot house
with our three kids and like, God is good.
That's okay.
Glenn Harper: I'm okay there, Van by the river and you'll be fine.
Yeah, it's.
Speaker2: All you know.
Julie Smith: But don't you think, though, you know, I think we see a
there's a thing with entrepreneurs you're never going to
fail that would find something else.
You'll find something else. And I think you're just going
to pivot no matter what, because that's the way your mind
works.
Kyle Morris: Right. And I think that there's a little bit of correlation
between. Being an entrepreneur and.
A professional golfer and the fact that professional golf,
like you go to Uruguay and you go, oh, my gosh, like this
week, if I play good, I could win $1,000,000 in four days.
Glenn Harper: That's not bad.
Kyle Morris: It's pretty good. And then you go with an entrepreneur, you
go, man, if I just, like, change the the copy on the
website and like create this like catchy headline, the
conversion rate could go from 4% to five and a half
percent, which is worth like $1,000,000.
And all I did was change the scripting and it's like so
it's, it's almost like this.
It's, I don't want to say it's like gambling, but it's
like, it's like there's just these little tweaks that you
can do that change the whole thing and then your life just
changes overnight.
Glenn Harper: It's more controllable.
I would suggest, like you're more predictable.
Yeah.
Speaker2: I mean, I always.
Speaker1: Say, like, put out put like.
Kyle Morris: You and I talked about this. I would much rather invest in
myself in a business and go and buy a business for
$1,000,000, then put $1,000,000 into Apple stock, which I
have no control over.
Glenn Harper: Right. Other than we use their product.
Speaker2: And then I got to check my phone.
Julie Smith: And then there's three sitting on this table right now.
Glenn Harper: So so the the one thing about when you, you know, people
start as an entrepreneur, they'll go, hey, I want to be I
want to do this thing.
And you basically was I want to teach I want to teach
people. And deep down, it probably is like the more I
teach, well, maybe back in my mind a little bit, maybe I
can find something will make me better that I maybe can try
the golfing thing again.
But ultimately you're like, look, this is probably my
superpower is teaching people.
I can motivate people. I get them to believe that they can
achieve something better than they thought they could from
an instructor standpoint. Right.
Well, when you're running as an entrepreneur, don't you
feel like at some point you're like, I'm going to teach all
these people and then you realize, well, I don't have any
more hours in the day. I can only teach maybe a guy like
you 22 lessons an hour, a pop a day.
I got to have 2 hours to sleep, but then you can't do any
of that.
Julie Smith: I know that seems worse than touring.
Glenn Harper: Literally, it had to be. And so at some point you said,
well, I'm tired of I can't just do business and just do
lessons. I have to convert this to building a business.
When did that lightbulb hit for you?
When did you realize that?
Kyle Morris: Probably in the fourth conversation you and I had stopped
working on in your business.
Start working on your business.
So yeah, for me, coaching really, you know, as cliche as it
sounds, coaching and golf, golf is really just the vessel
to pour into people's lives, to really form their character
because I mean, you can talk there's a lot of things in
regards to hard work, you know, the illusion of instant
gratification, all these different things.
And we have an elite junior academy, which is really the
bread and butter of what we're doing.
We're working with 40 kids.
I see him 12 hours a week and it's allowing me to really
make it so that they're successful in life.
So they're not a bunch of sayers, but actually doers.
So golf was literally just the it's just the vessel for me
to, like, pour into people's lives.
And that's really the as Napoleon Hill says, the deficit.
I think it's a definite ness of purpose that I that I why
I'm doing what I'm doing.
And then to the point you're you're absolutely right of the
fact of like your hours or I mean, I'm booked through June.
Speaker1: I tried to get a lesson. I was denied.
Speaker3: Just you didn't make it to the website.
Speaker1: I did. And it's like the Kyle does not work here.
I was like, what?
Kyle Morris: Yeah. So so there gets to a point where you just go, okay,
well, like, I've got to, I've got to do more.
That's why I keep doing this. These, these, you know,
expansions and buying business because I have to as an
entrepreneur, which I think most of us all are, I have to
see what the ceiling is.
And if I don't see what the ceiling is, I don't even know
if I can live with myself. So it's like I'd rather fail and
see what the ceiling is than not try and just be like I
could very well just chill out and say, hey, like life is
good.
Glenn Harper: Like we've had that conversation.
That's never going to happen. It's an insatiable appetite.
Now some entrepreneurs like to just do this thing and
they're good with it and they just milk it and it's fine.
But other ones are just they're just wired differently.
And you're that guy, right? Where it's like everything is
an opportunity.
And what I want to go back to this one thing that you said.
So golf is a most amazing sport bonding, whatever you want
to call it, golfers get it, non golfers don't.
And if you can get in the golfing club of understanding
what golf is, it is it is all about life.
It's really about relationships.
It's character, it's, you know, challenging yourself, it's
overcoming adversity.
It literally is a metaphor for everything in life golf is.
And I think that's why there's such a popularity of it.
And if they can make it so it doesn't take a hacker 7
hours, it would be great.
But it just doesn't it just takes a long time.
And do you find that when people come in to get a golf
lesson, this is this is what I find talking to
entrepreneurs all the time or clients that they don't
really want to talk about the golf per se.
They they want to talk about it makes them better as a
person by being understanding golf better and challenging
themselves and over. Come the adversity, they come out of
it like it's a therapy session.
I mean, I see it when I talk to clients.
They come out like they feel better about stuff.
And all we did is do this one little thing.
Do you feel like somebody comes out of there and they feel
better about life because they just talked about golf?
Kyle Morris: I think that sometimes it's really depending upon the person
and where they are in their journey.
I mean, there is sometimes which I think is really cool on
my in on the lesson t that in the lesson T and the fact
that I don't really care.
I don't really care who you are.
Speaker1: Right.
Kyle Morris: Like I work with some really, really, really, really
successful people.
And it's like when you're in the bay, like, I'm the boss
and you're not. So just be quiet.
Right. And there's something to be said about.
Sometimes you need to encourage and love and nurture the
human because they feel a little bit down and blah, blah,
blah. And then there's sometimes where you've got to be
like, I don't know what world you live in, but like you
can't, like you can't not work and then still make
$1,000,000 a year like that world doesn't exist.
Speaker1: What are you talking about? I see that on Tok all the time.
Kyle Morris: So, like, it's it's kind of it really just depends on the
person of where they are.
And reading the humor, reading them and their character and
where they are in their journey of like what are the what
are the words of life that need to be poured into this
kind? This person, whether it's, you know, encouraging and
loving or it's like, no, you actually like need to get more
into a little bit.
Glenn Harper: Seems like there's this you know it's golf is the epitome of
one of my favorite sayings. It's you know, it's not what
happens to you, it's how you react to it.
And golf is a literally a MMA fight for 18 holes against
yourself. Yeah, the elements are irrelevant.
Kyle Morris: It's interesting because if you play golf for 5 hours, you
actually only hit a golf ball for one minute.
And then if you think about the routine of like thinking
about how to play the shot and blah, blah, blah, that's 24
minutes. So there's four and one half hours where you're
just.
Glenn Harper: Solid quantum of solace, mental warfare, where it literally
is. Yeah. And you know, it's funny, when you play golf with
somebody, you really get to know a lot about that person.
And again, I think it's when you work with somebody in the
business world as well, you get to see a lot about people
because again, they're you get to see their true character
come out of who they are and what they really think.
But as a golfer, it's I'm always amazed when people spend
the time and the money to go out and go play, play, not
work, play around the golf.
They're mad the whole time and they leave mad.
And it's the same thing in business.
If you're in business and you're an entrepreneur and you're
mad or you're depressed and you're mad, why are you doing
it? Like, you have to change that because it's not supposed
to be like that. It's supposed to be fun, right?
Kyle Morris: Yeah. But I think well, I think this kind of goes into the
entrepreneur in the sense of that.
I think that all great entrepreneurs and all great athletes
are circled and encompassed with a body of with a with like
basically a halo of optimism.
So, like, if Tom Brady is down by three points, right, and
he's got 850 seconds left, everybody in the stadium knows
that Tom's winning.
Speaker1: Correct. It's like the.
Kyle Morris: Other team knows that Tom's winning and the fans know that
Tom's winning. And when they don't win, when he doesn't
win, everyone kind of looks at each other.
They go, That's weird.
Speaker1: Yeah, that's.
Kyle Morris: True. So to your point, you go, well, if your business
fails, you'll just figure something else out.
And I go, You're right.
That's why I don't really care about failing.
I'll just, I don't know, I'll create some marketing agency
or something. I don't know.
Like I don't put something on my heart that's like, Hey, do
this now. It's like, all right, so, so.
With whatever situation happens to an entrepreneur, right.
They really have, I think, the most successful ones.
They always know that whatever the gym is, they'll always
get out of it and there's no situation.
You go, Hey, like you're CEO, like, you know, I'm just
making something up. Like your CEO just, you know, stole
500 grand. You go, okay, well, I mean, that's the sucks,
but we'll figure it out.
Glenn Harper: We'll send it to 99 to the IRS.
They'll go to jail for tax fraud.
It's easy.
Kyle Morris: So so there's always there's always something that you can
there's always something that the entrepreneur can hold on
to and say, hey, like, it'll be fine.
Glenn Harper: Well, I think that's the one of the I guess that's the whole
point of this whole circuitous conversation is the fact
that, no, what's what's the worst that can happen?
It doesn't work.
That's literally the worst that can happen.
And so you're out of money.
So guess what? Do you have not enough skill set or belief
in yourself that you can figure out and do something else.
So once you know the best that can happen, which is
awesomeness and the worst is, well, I just got to do
something different. I feel like that takes the shackles
off an entrepreneur to be able to just go do it right and
not be scared.
Kyle Morris: Yeah. And I think I think, too, it's and what you've really
helped me with probably more than anybody is that is, is
with all of that stuff, learning the art of delegating.
And I think that's a really hard thing for like
entrepreneurs to wrap their brain around of saying, hey,
like, I know if I did this, maybe I could do it better, but
like my hours are actually better spent doing something
else and then let them do this.
They'll get it to 80% to completion.
I'll put the all tie the bow on it, you know, cross the
t's, dot the I's, alter something and then away we go.
So I think like there's a really, really cool book.
I forget who wrote it, but it's called Rocket Fuel.
I think I said it to you once in a text, you know, where it
talks about how every great company has like a visionary
integrator, right?
So I think most entrepreneurs probably are really good
visionaries. It doesn't mean all of them, but it's the it's
having the people that can integrate the plan of what the
visionary is.
Speaker1: Doing to execute it.
Yeah.
Speaker2: And otherwise it's just fluff.
Julie Smith: So on that point, when did you realize like, hey, I need a
team, I need to delegate?
Speaker2: I realize when I was sleeping 2 hours a day.
Speaker1: Literally, I think that's when it was.
No.
Julie Smith: But then how did you go about that?
So once you kind of have the vision for that, how do you
how did you go about doing that?
Because I think sometimes, like you said, delegation, I
think entrepreneurs forget that building a team.
Kyle Morris: Yeah, I think that to the point of and he keeps circling
back to this of the there's people who talk and there's
people that do so you basically if you think of like a I
don't know, like a like a graph, right?
The bottom, the bottom.
Speaker1: What does assistant know what you're doing?
Geometry. Here we are. Just bring it back.
This this is not this was not in the agenda.
Speaker2: Was the bottom one. Is that X or Y?
Speaker1: Probably the.
Kyle Morris: Y? I don't know. So the Y think of that is like trust.
And then the vertical graph, right, that's, that would be
performance. So it's very, very hard to get someone who's
on the top corner who has high performance and trust.
That's the visionary, right?
Like that's the person who, like, they think of ideas and
they initiate them and they never miss.
Right. And then you have people who are like really high
performers, like, hey, what'd you get on your act?
And they go 36 and you go, What's your GPA?
And they're like, two five and you go, Oh, wow.
Like, I would almost rather this is kind of circles
perfectly. I would rather be someone who on a, on a, on an
educational standpoint, I'd rather hire the person who got
a39 or a four point and a 25 on their act because they're a
high trustworthy individual that I could then train to be
high performance rather than get the high performance
person that I can't ever delegate a task to.
And I don't know if it's getting done.
I can train performance, I can't train trust.
So like I would.
So if someone says, Yeah, I got a 36 and I go, What was
your GPA in high school?
And they go, Oh to eight.
I go, Well, you're a degenerate, right?
And like crazy, like you don't apply yourself.
Or if someone's like, Hey, I got a41, I go, What's your
act? And they go, I got a 25.
I'll talk about that. Then I go, okay, well like, you know,
you're striving, right?
Like you've got a work ethic that I can, you know, work
with.
Glenn Harper: So like golfing is, you know, I guess at your level as a
touring professional, you probably have a somewhat of a
team around you to support you.
But ultimately when you're out out there on the course,
it's about you only and it's you are the one.
So when you go in and be an entrepreneur and you're like,
Okay, I'm used to just throwing the bag over my back.
I got all of us hold my beer, I can do this.
And then all of a sudden you're like, Wait a minute, I it's
not that I can't. I don't want to.
This is not my best value at that point in time.
Like how long did it take you in your journey of having the
golf room where you said, That's it, I got to get people in
place to execute on these things that I do.
How long did that take you?
Speaker2: You're saying how long did it take me to get the team?
Speaker1: I say I can't.
Kyle Morris: Do I think, well, the team for me is like always growing.
I mean, I just hired someone to take over marketing because
I was. We were doing a lot of the marketing.
I'm you know, I'm always doing these oh, what are they
called? I think they're graphs.
They're basically like time charts, like what do you spend
your time on? So it's always looking these things.
I go, okay, like I'm spending 3 hours a day on this.
I can delegate that and hire that out.
You know, like if I'm spending a lot of time like doing
something for an academy to create like practice plans and
stuff, like, yeah, I can do that, but like someone else
could also do that and then I can oversee it, right?
And I could actually just pay that person a salary.
And then on the back end, you know, I'll end up making
better decisions and spending my time more wisely.
So it's I think it's I think there's you're continuing to
grow. You're always delegating more out.
And then it's just the art of finding the right, the right
people.
Glenn Harper: You're a very interesting entrepreneur because most
entrepreneurs are not in the numbers, graphs, charts,
tendencies, trends.
They just have an idea and this is what they want to do.
You're very different like and again, I would call you a
real golfer, and I mean that as a compliment because real
golfers can remember in 1993, on the back nine at the
course on that hole, they use this club and the weather
temperature conditions and they got this score right.
I don't remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, but
like and I feel like I'm an okay golfer.
But like that data that you have in your head where you're
analyzing that, is that something you learned or is this
something you just you have a hobby for that?
Like you just enjoy it because most people don't don't like
the data. Entrepreneurs hate data, which is weird, but they
just don't.
Kyle Morris: Yeah, I mean, the way that I go about I kind of have, I
guess the way to articulate it.
I kind of have a very data driven math portion to my
decision making and then there is a spiritual portion to my
decision making. So to the point of if I'm going to make a
decision based upon buying a business or whatever, I'm
obviously going to do the pro formas and figure out like
what I need to do to make this thing work so that
essentially I can make $1 as long as I don't lose dollars,
I can sleep working.
I don't really care. Meaning work doesn't scare me.
So I'll invest $100 Million if as long as I make
$100,000,001.
Speaker1: I want, I want in on that.
Kyle Morris: Okay, so, so as long so so I'll use the data and use the use
all of the stuff to basically validate the decision.
And then I'll think through it and pray through it a lot.
And I feel like if my, you know, obviously, like if I feel
like I'm working through that and like I feel like, you
know, as a, you know, just being frank, like as a
Christian, like if I say, hey, I'm, I'm acknowledging all
of these different things and I'm kind of putting trust in
what the plan is and my heart feels attached to that.
Then I go, okay, like I'm good with the result because good
piece. Yeah, I'm at peace.
Like if it wins or fails, like, you know, there's a plan
for my life and I'll be I'll be good either way.
Glenn Harper: Did you you know, a lot of entrepreneurs, they don't even
know they are one. And all of a sudden one day they are
one. Do you feel like when you were a kid growing up, did
you have any of these tendencies to be enough or not at
all?
Kyle Morris: You hear all about all these entrepreneurs.
Like I sold magazines as a six year old and like, you know,
did all these things.
And I was like, No, I actually never had a job.
Speaker1: This is amazing. So all you answer is you don't have to be
programmed that way.
Kyle Morris: No, I wasn't. I never had a job.
I didn't have a hard upbringing, you know, like I was, you
know, suburban, like privileged kid.
I had a great parents.
Like I did not have a hard life growing up and then but I
worked really hard. Right?
And that's a whole discussion itself.
Like, you know, is that thing of that inner voice inside of
you where you're a 16 year old kid and it's 1030 at night
and you go, Yeah, I could stay out, but like, I think I'm
going to go home because I need a practice at night in the
morning, right? Like my parents never actually gave me a
curfew. They're like, yeah, you're they never told me I had
to study because I just I just did it.
I don't know. You know, it's probably one of those limited
gifts that, like, you know, God gave me for that stuff,
but. I forget what the question.
Oh, oh, did I?
But I think when I got when I when when I got the
opportunity to kind of grow something, it just got it got.
I don't know.
Speaker1: It just resonated.
Kyle Morris: Yeah. Just hit home.
Did you? When I was playing, I mean, when you're playing as
a tour professional, I still used to have to go out and
raise sponsorship dollars and.
Speaker1: Meet and greet.
Kyle Morris: And meet and greet and stuff. So it's kind of like you're
running your own. I mean, you're running your own business.
Glenn Harper: You got to promote your brand, basically, right?
So I guess you probably are used to that.
And again, you're so comfortable because you when did you
start playing golf? How old were you?
Seven, seven, man.
That's pretty cool. So yeah, that by the time you're 15,
you're already, you know the routine, you know what's going
on. Do you feel that you have a at some point, did you have
a a mentor or somebody that looked at you and said, Kyle,
you're somebody special.
Let me tell you what you need to do or try to do this and
this is going to change your life.
Did anybody ever say that to you or do you just kind of
meandered through and figured it out now?
Kyle Morris: I think it was probably if anything, it was, um.
It was always it was more of my parents, like they were
really one of our I think whole heartedly all Morris's and
my family, we were all based off, you know, the five
languages were all words of affirmation.
So like my parents were always like, Oh, you're going to do
great things. Like, you're bound to this and like, we're
going to go on vacation when we're old and like you'll just
pay for it all because you're amazing and like, you're
going to do great things. So like, I had this as a child,
like, I just had a self-fulfilling prophecy that like, it
was okay, it was all going to be fine.
So which I think is you have to paint a vision for like
what your life is first.
And if you don't have a vision for what it is, it's very,
very hard to accomplish it.
Glenn Harper: Did you have a dream?
Client that you would love to to teach or coach.
I mean, obviously, it's not me because I can't get in to
see you. But is there somebody out there that you're like,
man, I've seen that.
I've seen that guy on the TV or watched him play.
And if I could just get 10 minutes with them, I could
change what you're.
Speaker2: Saying as a tour player.
Glenn Harper: Or anybody out there that you could coach and teach how to
play golf better. Who would you love to bring in your fold
and teach them how to be the best they can be?
Julie Smith: I'm going to love this if you say like your wife.
Kyle Morris: So if I had, it's not because she wouldn't even do it.
She'd say, Kyle, shut up, don't talk to me.
I do what I want. Yeah, if I had so tour player, if I had
any.
Speaker1: Player or anybody in the world, like, like, who's the dream
play, man? That guy, that girl, whoever.
Kyle Morris: I actually have I think that that helping I think I could do
quite a bit on a tooth ask in both ways I think I think
helping. I have a buddy who's good friends with Rickie
Fowler. I think that if Rickie came with with how we teach
and what we do, I think we could help Rickie quite a bit.
Glenn Harper: He's going to hear this thing and he's going to reach out
to, I think Jason.
Kyle Morris: Jason Day would be, you know, having I had reached out to
him. I think that he's been kind of going through kind of
trying to figure it out a little bit last couple of years.
I think I could help him quite a bit.
I think that would be fun. And then on a on a personal
side, there's a guy named Russell Brunson who I really like
his marketing stuff.
It's probably who I get a lot of my marketing stuff from.
I think just hanging out with him for for a period of time
is fun. But I think it's just, you know, one thing is
people are always like, hey, Kyle, like, who do you like
to. Who do you like to work with?
You know, like you only work with really good players,
like. No, absolutely not.
Like, I just like working with players who are passionate
about getting better. Whether you shoot 100 or 65, I don't
really care if you shoot 65 and like you're not coachable
and you want to blah, blah, blah.
I go, I don't even want to hang out with you, you know, so
and so it's really just someone who has a desire to, to
learn. So, I mean, I just started working with like Evan
Turner from, you know, who played at Ohio State.
And I mean, he's been amazing, like super coachable and
like.
Speaker1: He wants to.
Kyle Morris: Learn. Wants to learn.
You just picked up golf like two weeks ago.
And then you have other people who shoot 68 or 70 and
they're not coachable and you go, I don't want to be around
you.
Glenn Harper: So this I this one, this other question, we didn't get to it
earlier. But, you know, this is a very serious question.
Why would a prospective student trust your judgment as a
golf instructor seeing how you settle in Columbus, Ohio,
where you can only play golf six months a year?
Seems like it would be more credible if you settle in like
Indiana or Mississippi.
Speaker2: Indiana or Mississippi.
Speaker1: Those are great golfing meccas.
What?
Kyle Morris: No judgment. Yeah, judgment.
You know, so but but I think that actually so people will
always be like I was doing a lot of stuff for Golf Channel
for a while and they were like, Why don't you just go open
a facility down to Florida?
Oh my God, that's a terrible idea.
And they go, Why is that? And I go, Because the truth is,
is that if I give you a lesson, go in and you go out and I
give you a lesson today and you go play tomorrow and you're
going to try it and you're going to go, This doesn't work.
What's the new tip?
Right? Whereas in Ohio, if someone comes and they say, Hey,
Kyle, I'm going to come take lessons, like when the season
starts, I'm going to start coming in April.
I go, That's a terrible idea.
I go, You need to come see me in November, right?
Because November, if you see me in November or October,
that actually gives me like four or five months where we
can do pure motor pattern training, like make your stuff
better so that when you hit the golf course in April or
May, you're not having to think about what you're doing.
And I mean, it's.
Speaker1: Natural.
Kyle Morris: It's yeah, it's more ingrained.
Whereas if you're like, I'm going to get a tip in May, like
it's, it's, you know, you've got to work at it.
There's no doubt that like if someone's like, I'm going to
get one lesson, like that's fine, but like you still have
to go practice. I had a guy yesterday who came in and he
had he had booked six lessons with me.
He had booked six consecutive weeks of lessons with me.
Right. And he came in yesterday and he's hitting balls and
I go, listen, like I don't really know what more to tell
you. Like, you just need to go work at it.
When you work, when you set up, you like your feedback
session, your practice session. It's good.
But like I don't have Magic's fairy dust.
Like, you still have to earn it.
It's it's no different than the entrepreneur.
Like, they could call me and say, Hey, Kyle, I want you to
consult my business and tell me what we can do.
So they do it and I go, Okay, great, you need to go do
this. And then they call me in the next week and they go,
Okay, so what should I do? I go, Well, I already told.
Speaker1: You I cannot do it.
Kyle Morris: You have to do it. So there's people that do things and
there's people that say things.
Speaker1: There's no shortcuts, right?
So I.
Speaker2: Work hard.
Glenn Harper: So and I think probably one of the I think one of the
reasons that last question was more of a joke, because it's
not the fact that most entrepreneurs, they for them to be
successful, what they do, they have to believe passionately
in what they do, that they're making a difference in
whatever. And it's when you're teaching somebody like you
said, it doesn't matter what their handicap is.
It's the the commitment to helping them achieve their goals
as your client to help them get better.
And you have to really, truly care about that.
Like, you can't just sort of say, well, you know, get a few
balls. Yeah, do this, change your angle and whatever and
you're fine. I don't think that's how you do it.
I think you have this holistic approach.
And as an entrepreneur, when you can believe in what you do
so well, that you can resonate that with your clients,
they're going to be loyal to you forever, right?
I mean, I think that's that's such a part.
Kyle Morris: That's what you know, if you I mentioned him earlier in the
podcast, like if you listen to and read any Napoleon Hill
stuff and he talks about definite, definite ness of
purpose, like there's purpose to what you're doing and the
like your whole heartedly behind why you're doing it and
what you're doing. And there's a vision behind it.
And that's, that's cloud that's surrounded with this bubble
of optimism. And then when you do that, you go, now you're
just like a freight train running down, down the track, and
you go, Get out of my way.
Glenn Harper: It's like Napoleon Dynamite when he went up and danced in
front of everybody. Just like that.
Speaker2: You're going to eat your tots.
Speaker1: Yeah, I got some of my pocket there.
Julie Smith: So good. So I have I know we kind of talked about the mentor
and what you had growing up, but now I think.
You serve as a mentor to a lot of young people, and I think
that's a huge responsibility that maybe you don't
necessarily think about. But as you've become this
entrepreneur and you've become relatively successful at it,
do you have someone that kind of took you under their wing
that kind of led you down the path of, hey, when you own a
business or someone that was able to kind of walk through
some of those things with you as you've kind of, you know,
100%.
Kyle Morris: I mean, so like when I was playing, I had I had five of the
top 12 coaches in the world assembled on my team.
So I had Mike Bender as my swing coach, Stan Utley as my
putting coach James Siegman at short game.
And then the team from Vision 54 is my mental side and
they're all top ten.
So you could make a very strong argument, not just saying
that I had the best team assembled on grass, like as a as a
coaching body. I always buy rankings.
So Mike, who is basically like a surrogate father to me, I
mean, I am forever indebted to that man as my swing coach.
One is, you know, he taught me, you know, basically every
weight he created, the framework and the foundation in
which I teach upon for swing stuff.
But then also Mike's one of those guys that everything he
does is very thorough, thought out and like he's just one
of those guys. Like he just succeeds at life and he's super
humble and just like an amazing character.
So I owe a lot to him.
Like, a lot to him, maybe more than anybody.
Did you.
Glenn Harper: Did you seek him out or did he seek you.
Kyle Morris: Out? I know. I say, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I worked with him as a player, but everything that he had
ever said to me as a player when I was a player and with
all these coaches that basically just stuck in my brain
like glue. But then just like now, like I have a team of
people who I surround myself with, right?
So I had Mike, Stan, James and Lynn and now like I've got
Glenn and I have Mike and I have another guy named Lauren
Anderson, and I've got this other guy, Andy Hiltz.
And, you know, Aaron Weir.
I have these these team of about four or five people.
It's like I got a decision, like when we bounce off you and
bounce it off you and bounce it off you and bounce out of
you, and then I'll pull it all together, wrap it in my
brain. And then that gives me peace in my heart that I go,
Hey, like, they're on board, I'm on board, my heart's on
board. The financials are on board.
Great. What's going on? Doesn't work.
Yeah, whatever.
Glenn Harper: You figure that, you know, as most entrepreneurs don't set
that team up until later when they feel like they are
successful enough to warrant or like it's okay to invest in
that or to spend that line item.
The the entrepreneurs that put that team around them sooner
achieve great results quicker, just a compressed timetable
to.
Kyle Morris: Get where it is. It'd be hypocritical for me as a coach to
say I shouldn't have a coach.
Right. I mean, I'll invest in coaching.
Speaker1: That's a mic drop moment right there.
I need a button or something.
I don't even. That is that's that's fantastic.
Speaker2: So, so yeah.
Glenn Harper: When you're on your team, is it more of is there somebody
that says to you like has more influence over you or power
or you feel like you still get to drive the bus and you're
just getting the background noise and just you're driving
along and they're they're talking to you and you can just
do what you do. Is there anybody that stands out on that or
is it more of an equal weighted?
Because some people have like this person can tell them
anything and they're going to just listen to it.
And sometimes they just appreciate that person telling them
something, but they're really not going to buy into it
until they figure it out on their own.
Do you have those kind of people on your team or is it
really just still you just driving the bus?
Kyle Morris: Well, to be honest, I think in a whole in a I think to be
frank, like Wesley, my wife is that person.
She is the unfortunately, she's.
Speaker1: The she she.
Kyle Morris: She's the springboard I the me bouncing 1000 ideas off.
And she's she really is you know, and this could be a its
own podcast in itself of like what what makes a great
marriage. But she really does help me in creating, making
me like the best version of myself in regards to there's
things that she's really good at that I suck at and there's
things that I'm great at that she sucks at and there's
things that she helps keep me in line and she doesn't care
who I am, what I've done, how much I make.
It's like, No, no, like you're going to do this.
And when Mama says you're doing it, you're doing it.
So she's really that that person for me that has the
ultimate authority like, you know, if I want to do
something and she goes, Nope.
Then it's like, okay, like my love with you is more
important than this. So, and, but, you know, but she's very
she also understands like what makes me tick.
So she's like, okay, I get it, you know, so she lets she
also like she, you know, she, she lets me run, which is,
which is amazing. But, you know, I've been with Leslie
since I was 17 or 18, so I mean, we've been through
everything.
Glenn Harper: Everything. Yeah. It's like there's a, there's one thing
about being an entrepreneur, but then there's the
entrepreneurs and the spouses that love them and like,
that's a whole nother, like, module of how, how do you
communicate effectively?
Because I hate to tell you, but I'm pretty sure that you're
spending more time working on your business than you were
working while you're playing professional.
I mean, yes, hands down.
Yeah. But somehow you find the balance and maybe it's not
because it's the travel and all that grind, but you're
still I'm little.
I know you. And you know, most of us are the same way.
It's a 24 seven proposition.
You can it's really hard to turn it off.
But you do have special times where you shut your phone off
and you don't.
Kyle Morris: You're on it. You try.
I think that's the hardest part of an entrepreneur, is just
trying to make sure that when you're there, you're there
and you're being very mindful and present.
I think that's that's probably something that I'm always
working on in my character to just say, hey, like I'm with
my kids, be with your kids.
And like when you're with your wife, like be with your
wife. And then when it's time to work, work, right?
Glenn Harper: So if you're coaching me, I don't want you checking your
phone to see what else is going on.
I want your undivided attention.
Kyle Morris: Yeah, right. Yeah. So.
So it's always, it's it's that.
It's that balance of like.
Of what you're doing. But it's the same time, you know?
It's like someone emailed me the other day or I was talking
to someone. They're like, So I'll send you an email.
Like, What's your personal email?
I go, personal email.
Like, Who's got that? What's that mean?
Like my work email is my personal email, which is.
Speaker1: My whole life.
Speaker2: So like, I don't even know what you're saying.
Glenn Harper: I can't have two emails. How do I even keep track of that?
If you have, if you could go back and do it again because
what do you like? 48, 49, 36, 30 if you could go back and
talk to your 21 year old self, would you do anything
different knowing what you know now to get where you are or
you kind of and I guess this is for all the entrepreneurs
out there, there's really no regrets, but it would be neat
if there was this key moment in time.
You're like, Man, if I just knew that, then it would have
been a whole different narrative.
Not better, not worse, just different.
Kyle Morris: You know, this is going to sound this is not going to be
probably what will spike the mic or spike the ratings.
But I honestly don't have any regrets in my life.
I can't honestly, from the bottom of my soul say I don't
have one thing like major of.
Sure. I mean, there's like little tiny like, hey, you
should do this or like you should have, you know, turn off,
not text it. At that moment.
I'm talking about like major life decisions where I go that
can really come to fruition in my brain that go or the
front of my brain that go, Hey, I really messed up on that
one. And I think it's because of like what we went back to
in the middle of the episode of, you know, like doing my
due diligence and lots of prayer and all that kind of
stuff. I'm just saying, hey, like, I'm good with I'm good,
right? And, and realizing that because of that, if it
didn't work out, there isn't a regret because I go, No, no.
Like I followed what my heart was saying and like.
And even though it didn't work out, it didn't work out.
And that was the plan.
The plan was for it not to work out.
And I'm okay with that, right?
Because if it didn't work out, there's some lesson that I
learned through it and then you fail forward from it.
Glenn Harper: Pivot and move forward.
I feel like the tattoo on your chest that says no regrets.
Probably, probably should have said no regrets.
I don't know why you're not pointing at that.
But again, he's sitting here in the studio shirtless is
really weird.
Speaker2: Well, now my shirts.
Speaker1: Off, so. Okay, everybody, I wish you could see the visual.
It's impressive.
Speaker2: Suns out, guns out.
Julie Smith: So if you could give one piece of advice to fellow
entrepreneurs just starting out, what would you give to
them?
Kyle Morris: If I could give one piece of advice to an entrepreneur just
starting out.
I would say don't try to make it perfect.
I think that there is this boom.
I think there is this thing in the world, especially like
with certain personalities, where it's like, okay, I'm
going to launch this product.
I need to figure out every thing that's with it, every
customer support problem, every email.
There needs to be a solution. It's like, No, no, no, no,
no. Like just launch it.
Like if it's 70 or 80% done, fine, and then just figure it
out, right? I mean, I watched my online business and we
didn't like two weeks.
It was like, Covid's coming.
We're like, great, let's start online.
And then we I flew a guy up from Tampa, we filmed a video
series, I launched it and, you know, 5000 lessons a month
later, here I am.
I mean, if I would have taken all the time to figure out
all of the things that had to take, I mean, good luck.
The opportunity is gone.
So like, just do it and stop thinking about it.
Julie Smith: Which goes back to your saying and doing, right?
Speaker2: Yeah. Like, you know, just.
Glenn Harper: I think that's that's probably the best takeaway that we
have on this is, is like, don't be scared, just do it.
And it's all going to work out one way or the other.
So just keep going and have fun with it.
I think that's the key thing.
Well, I appreciate you coming in today.
I know you're busy, guy.
Like I said, I can get you for this, but I can't get you
for a lesson. So that's kind of funny.
But, you know, maybe we like to hear our own voice.
I don't know. But any parting words you like to say or you
want to give a plug to your company?
Kyle Morris: Yeah. So if anybody would like to go, they could go on
Instagram and they can follow the golf room.
They can get some free tips, tips and tricks if they go to
the golf room everywhere, if they're ever looking for some
on some advice and they're not in Columbus, we can do it.
We do all our our online systems, a very holistic approach.
So that's that's great.
And then go subscribe to me on stock shot secrets.
It's on Spotify and you can listen to my podcasts and
figure out stories of life and what's going on.
Speaker1: Life according to Kyle.
Well, I appreciate you coming in to Kyle.
Always, always a pleasure to talk to you.
If you're a very inspirational friend, a very inspirational
character, and you're just very good at what you do.
And if you want to get better at playing golf and better in
life, go see this guy because he's an amazing guy.
So this is Glen Harper.
Speaker3: Julie.
Speaker1: Smith. Everybody take care.