Meet Bryan Yates
Coach for experienced business founders who’ve scaled everything except the space to think.
I’m a coach and decision partner. And, like you, a fellow business builder—since 2008… when I became a corporate refugee from the Walt Disney Co.
My perspective was shaped in some unexpected rooms. I started as an oral historian working with Holocaust survivors, which taught me to hear what people carry between the words. I produced at Disney, where the job was to hold someone’s vision and bring it to life without losing its soul. I’ve coached hundreds of endurance athletes, where I learned to read the body language of “I can’t.” And I’ve had two business divorces of my own, which taught me exactly what buried complications cost.
Today, I help founders discover the complications they can't see, so they can think clearly, move decisively, and operate sustainably.
That's it. That's the whole coaching job for me.
"'What sorcery is this and how can he see right into my brain?' — me, after my first interactions with Bryan. I don’t know how he does it, but he can see the BS you tell yourself and help you free yourself from it. I’ve never met anyone like him. If you don’t know him, go ahead and fix that, then come back to thank me."
— Adriana Tica, Strategic AF
When we work together
Together, we discover the complications you can’t see from inside your own business, uncover what’s driving them, and discard what doesn’t belong. One buried assumption, belief, or motive at a time. It’s sustained, honest, sometimes uncomfortable work — looking at what you’ve been carrying and deciding whether it still earns its place.
This is training. Not theory, not therapy. You come out of it making decisions faster, with less noise, and more trust in your own read.
I’m direct. If I think you’re headed somewhere that doesn’t serve you, I’ll say it. I’m biased — for you. I advocate hard for you and the business you’re building, which sometimes means saying the thing nobody else in your life will say.
What’s left when the complications come off is a business that fits. One that makes money, doesn’t bury you alive, and actually feels like yours.
Pack light, travel far.
Bits that don’t fit on a business card
My coaching life started on an Alabama hilltop in 2011, mid-pedal stroke, during a cancer charity bike ride from Nashville to New Orleans. Apparently I couldn’t just ride a bike without turning it into a career.
I’m a recovering alcoholic. I’ve been actively working on my sobriety since January 2012.
Love travel. 23 countries and counting, including living in Germany long enough to learn that I’ll never really speak German.
I own and produce The Bovine Classic — a four-day gravel cycling event that brings 600 riders from five continents to Paso Robles wine country every October. Bougie, sweaty, and proof that I’m in the mud building something that matters too.
Before every conversation I quietly repeat: “Remember, you’re just here to create and to serve.”
in 2019, my wife and I moved from busy Los Angeles to rural San Luis Obispo county—where we live with two surly cats and a herd of 20 deer.
Thank you for popping by. Remember to exhale,
Bryan
No pitch. No pressure. Just a focused conversation about where you are, where you want to go, and whether this is the right fit.