Category: Focus and Productivity

Entrepreneurs Share Their Strategic Coach Results After Year 1

This is probably the easiest blog post we’ve ever written or ever will write! Three open and articulate entrepreneurs talk candidly about joining Strategic Coach — all experiencing initial “leap of faith” fear — and about their Year 1 experience that followed, including their results.
If you’ve been thinking (and thinking and thinking) about The Strategic Coach Program and whether it’s right for you, read every word of this blog and watch the video. We’re trying hard to stay objective, but we admit these three Coach entrepreneurs make it difficult.
Real experiences straight from Program participants.
Hugo, Shawn, and Scott each focus on a different perspective of their Year 1 experience in Strategic Coach, hitting on the three key areas that make Strategic Coach the top coaching program for successful entrepreneurs.
1. Hugo Brooks — One-Of-A-Kind Community
Company: Brand Dynamics Ltd., London, UK
Industry: High Tech/Brand Development
Insight: Hugo knows he already has what it takes to succeed (we call it “batteries included”), but says Strategic Coach gives him the extra clarity and support to accomplish even his biggest goals.

 

In his words:

Strategic Coach is a safe environment with entrepreneurs just like you, trying to accomplish the same thing as you.
Everyone who shows up is willing to participate in something that is going to improve their life.
Comprehensive entrepreneurial tools cover everything you can think of — all your questions will be answered.
The Program is real and relevant to today. I walk away knowing how to interpret everything — tomorrow. I think that’s amazing and powerful.
Your coach is not a teacher, but an experienced entrepreneur like you and me. They’re one of us.
It seemed like a huge commitment to make at first. Looking back after a year, the reward has been exponentially greater than the investment. I can prove that in money terms.

“Being in a room with people who have the same objective, who are also from different backgrounds and places in their journey, is incredibly rewarding, stimulating, and supportive. I don’t get that anywhere else in my life.”
2. Shawn Shepheard — Noteworthy Growth
Company: Shawn Shepheard: Coach, Speaker, And Author, Pickering, ON
Industry: Coaching and Training
Insight: As a coach himself, Scott had an “aha!” moment and asked himself, “How dare I coach people and not seek out coaching for myself?’”

 

In his words:

What’s different now is that I have a structure in place that makes me work on my future every single day.
“What’s different now is that I have a structure in place that makes me work on my future every single day.”Click To Tweet
The workshops actually keep you on track, which leads to new opportunities and growth.
Coach is a brilliant combination of lessons and learning in the workshops, and time in between the quarters to apply what works for you.
The beauty of the experience is that we talk about our real life struggles and can learn from each other and grow.
There’s an immediate connection. There are very honest conversations; nobody holds back. We address the big questions in life. As entrepreneurs, there is nowhere else we can do this.
We’re not spoken to; we work together as a group. You hear about and even see the changes in people — like weight loss for example!
Embarrassingly, it took me nine years to join. I regret waiting so long — this is home for me.

“A lot of people who are really close to me personally and professionally have said, ‘Something’s changed about you, what’s different?’ The answer is Coach. This is ridiculously the best business decision I’ve ever made.”
3. Scott Proposki — Coaching Support Network
Company: Head Shots In A Minute, Lawrence, MA
Industry: Photography
Fun Fact: Scott has worked with National Geographic, Google, and The White House! (He was invited to the White House to photograph former President Barack Obama!)

 

In his words:

Before Strategic Coach, I was on the go all the time. It’s helped me slow down and strategically plan my next moves on my goals and to restructure my life in a way that is more aligned with who I am.
I now find peace in slowing down, which was hard for me to do. The pressure is off, and I have comfort in knowing that I have time to do everything I want to do.
A serendipitous moment: On my way to my first Strategic Coach workshop, I met Ray Bourque, one of the greatest NHL hockey players, at the Boston airport. In answer to Ray’s question, I told him was on my way to see my business coach. He shared his insights about having coaches since he was 12 years old, and how coaching played a huge role in his success. This chance encounter really solidified my decision to join Strategic Coach. I showed up 100% excited and committed.
A 911 call to Coach! I was in the middle of a huge business deal that wasn’t going according to plan. I couldn’t even think straight about what to do. I made what I call my “911 call” to Kory, my Program Advisor. She helped me to slow down and make the strategic decisions that were needed, and I ended up making a lot of money on that deal — with great support from Coach. Gosh! It just makes so much sense to have a coach!

“As I wheel into the peak performance of my life, to have such a supportive structure in place, and with everything I have learned so far, I’m really excited about the next three years of the Program. There is just no turning back.”





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How A Bigger Purpose Takes Your Decision-Making To A Whole New Level

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Multiplier Mindset Podcast on iTunes.
How A Bigger Purpose Takes Your Decision-Making To A Whole New Level


If you look at almost any entrepreneur — just starting out, successful, or somewhere in between — one thing they’ll all have in common is that they’ve battled or are currently battling complexity.
Complexity is an unyielding barrier to growth, both business and personal. And because complexity can be overwhelming, the smart decision-making needed to move you past any obstacles is compromised. This can even be game-ending.
Is this what being an entrepreneur is supposed to be like? In a word, no.
You need a strategy for dealing with complexity in order to continue growing in a simpler, more enjoyable, more rewarding way that’s also fun for everyone in your company, you included. Dan Sullivan sums it up like this: “To multiply, first you need to simplify.”
A winning strategy from a seasoned entrepreneur.
Lee Brower is one of our outstanding associate coaches, a 22-year participant in The Strategic Coach Program, and a successful entrepreneur in the Salt Lake City area.
Lee knows all about rapid growth and complexity, and the constant decision-making that still needs to happen. He uses a strategy that can instantly change the way you think about your bigger future as well as bring simplicity that you may never have thought possible to your life today.
Like Dan Sullivan, Lee believes in the power of a good question, and he adds a twist: Ask yourself a question you’ve never asked yourself before. It might sound too simplistic to have any possible effect on your future growth, but here’s what happens in your brain when you do that.
Suddenly, your thoughts have to rearrange themselves in response to a new question. It’s this rearranging process that benefits decision-making by producing new answers to old problems and moving you forward with each decision made.
Asking the questions that get results.
When Lee first started with Strategic Coach, he decided on an objective that got him in a questioning frame of mind. As he tells it, “Very early on in Coach, I decided that one of my objectives would be to leave each quarterly workshop asking a question that I’d never asked myself before. I wondered what the result of that would be.”
This practice soon became a crucial strategy in turning around a devastating business setback. Lee explains, “When I took a hit during the 2007 financial crisis, I could have said, ‘I have to do this, I need to do that, I’ve got to do something.’”
But rather than coming from that mindset of scarcity, which is almost always based on fear, Lee called up his practice of asking himself the right questions focused on his bigger purpose in life. This in turn made it clear what was most important to get started on right away. Achieving that kind of focused simplicity — focusing on one thing, solving that, and moving on to the next — is the key, and as a result, your mind is freed up to make the right decisions.
What’s the one question …
When it comes to one question people should ask themselves, Lee believes that there is no one specific question, but all the questions should have this in common: They’re questions you’ve never asked yourself before.
“This gives you answers you’ve never heard before, and believe me, your life will change,” he says.
Lee also gave this piece of advice to set up the conditions for smart decision-making. “First, make sure that you have a vision for a future that’s bigger than your current business — a bigger purpose. The reason is that when we try to make meaningful decisions in the present without knowing what our bigger purpose is, we’re not making a decision based on what is most important to us. Having a clear picture of your bigger purpose focuses you and helps you make those meaningful decisions in the present.
“Often, as entrepreneurs, our decisions come down to money, and that might not be the best decision in a lot of situations. When you have a bigger purpose, all you have to ask yourself is whether your decision is going to support your bigger purpose or not. You don’t have to ask what’s next or worry about it, so you’re always in motion.”
When you get clear on your bigger purpose, you get clear on what you have to do today.Click To Tweet
Keep in motion: Lee walks the talk.
If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll face a lot of tough decision-making and obstacles to growth. Lee has a strategy for asking himself the right questions to keep moving forward that might work for you too.
“Every time I hear myself say that I need to do something,” he says, “a statement that comes from a scarcity mindset rather than an abundance mindset, I turn it into a question: What small step can I take today that will provide more freedom in my life? What small step can I take that will give me more time off? Or, what small step can I take today that will open up more doors to opportunity? These small decisions add up.”
Lee’s “small-steps mindset” bears thinking about: “It’s all about keeping in motion. In life we create too many finish lines. When we set goals, we set finish lines. Why not set goals with key milestones? Why not be in progress all the time?”
Why not start right now?



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It’s Time To Stop Doing Energy-Draining Activities

So many people believe that having to do things you don’t enjoy is simply a part of life. They’ve bought into a message that life isn’t about having everything the way you want it to be.
But the reason you became an entrepreneur is to have things the way you want them to be. You didn’t become an entrepreneur so you could spend the rest of your life putting up with things you don’t like.
Entrepreneurial freedom.
Being an entrepreneur means having the freedom to do what you love. But even still, business owners will make excuses for doing energy-draining activities by claiming that it’s just the nature of the business or the marketplace.
While it may very well have been that way in the 20th century, in the 21st century, with all the talent available either through relationship networks or electronic networks, you can find ways to extract yourself from situations and relationships that are irritating by finding the right person or system to take them over.
The point of being an entrepreneur is having the freedom to do what you love.Click To Tweet
Tell the truth.
Some people can numb themselves to the fact that an activity is irritating. The biggest obstacle that has to be overcome to eliminate your irritating, energy-draining activities is to tell the truth about what irritates you.
Once you’re honest with yourself about the activities you’re doing in your business that you find irritating, boring, and energy-draining, you can make a commitment to stop doing them. All the help in the world that you need to do that is available to you, but not until you tell the truth about it. The first person you have to sell on getting rid of the irritations in your life is yourself.
Identify your “irritating activities.”
When one of my clients first joined The Strategic Coach Program, he had a very fast growing business with an almost unlimited amount of opportunity, but he was doing an activity he didn’t like. One of his responsibilities was to do bidding on all of the jobs, and as they were growing so quickly, this used up an enormous amount of his time.
When I shared my model about the three types of activities that take up our time—Irritating, Okay, and Fascinating—there was a sudden realization on his part that this activity of doing the bidding, which he would do late at night and on weekends, was one he found really irritating and energy-draining. It was a breakthrough.
He told the truth about it and then he calculated how many hours he would get back if he stopped doing the bidding, and it was a huge incentive to eliminate this activity.
Gaining back time.
He put together a job description and, within the next 90 days, he had an applicant whose passion was the technique and technology of bidding.
At the end of the first year in the Program, he stood up and said, “I kept track of how much I got freed up from having someone take over this irritating activity, and in the first year, it was 1,000 hours.”
He said, “I felt totally freed up to have really great scouting missions out in the world and meet new people. Our whole planning for the expansion of our company jumped because I wasn’t tired. Every expansion before was forcing me into an activity that was more and more irritating. I didn’t know how much more of it I could take.”
In addition to improving his work life, his home life also improved—instead of working late, he was spending time with his family and friends. And everybody at the company found that he was so much more excited and pleasant to be around.
Not only is it not necessary to continue doing activities that drain your energy, but eliminating irritating activities from your life benefits you, your business, and everyone around you.


STOP DOING ACTIVITIES THAT IRRITATE YOU.

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How To Harness The Power Of Being Present

Listen to the podcast below or subscribe to the Multiplier Mindset Podcast on iTunes.
How To Harness The Power Of Being Present


From the very beginning of my coaching career, I’ve been aware that getting trapped in their past is one of the biggest things holding entrepreneurs back in their lives. Yet it is the present that holds all the possibility, growth, excitement, and satisfaction of being an entrepreneur. Being present in the moment is an undeniable catalyst for success.
Traps from the past.
A trap could be a perceived personal limitation of some kind that may have been picked up on early in life. It could be a memory that hasn’t been figured out or resolved in some way. Or it could be the memory of a past failure, an uncomfortable emotional situation, or a big mistake that was made.
So, whenever a new and exciting opportunity comes up, first there’s the initial excitement, and then the memory of a negative situation from the past stops any forward movement. We all know people who are held back by a particular situation, relationship, or experience from their past, with no hope of truly being present in the moment.
And then, the future traps.
On the other end of the spectrum lies the future, with its own set of mind traps. With the explosion of technological progress all around us and all the possibilities of what could be — the much bigger and better results from using new kinds of technology — I notice just as many people getting trapped in the future.
Just like people trapped in the past, those trapped in the future are having a hard time operating in the present, actually being present in the moment. You can tell when you’re having a conversation with them; they give you only half of their attention.
Their mind wanders. They’re distracted, most often by a cell phone. They can’t stay with a line of thought for more than a minute, and then they’re on to something else. We’ve all experienced this (or are guilty of it).
The greatest life skill today.
In our personal life and in every area of business, one of the most desirable and useful skills today is to be fully where you are, and to give your full attention to whomever you’re with or to whatever you’re working on.
We live in a highly distracting world, so I realize that this requires real intellectual, psychological, and emotional muscle not to be pulled back into the past or forward into the future. Both are just an idea in our minds. The only reality is the present.
I would say that not only has my success increased as I’ve learned to live my life day by day in the present, my satisfaction in life has also increased along with it.
There’s no possible satisfaction from being trapped in the past or in the future because these are just thoughts in your mind. So you’re actually not trapped in the past or the future — only by your thoughts about your past and your future.
My muscle-building “being present” exercise.
I’m a big fan of thinking exercises that involve paper and pen or pencil. Our brains have been scientifically proven to engage more with an idea when pen is put to paper. So let’s get started.
Set the timer on your phone for two minutes and write down all your winning achievements over the past 90 days, usually around five to ten things. Next, set the timer again and write down all the things that are creating progress right now in the present. Finally, set the timer and write down everything you’re thinking about in terms of your future.
When I take our clients through this exercise in The Strategic Coach Program, you can almost feel them settling in, getting grounded and centered in their thinking. They’re 100% present — and that’s where the learning happens.
“Be 100% present in the moment. That’s where the learning happens.”Click To Tweet
Enjoy all the benefits of being present.
When you’re actually focused on being present, amazing things happen. Great creative ideas happen, great decisions and plans happen, and energy and momentum are created for what has to happen to keep things moving.
Simply writing down your list of what you’re proud of from the past quarter, what’s giving you energy right now, and what you’re excited about in the future gets you started. Now you can do some deeper thinking, communicate your ideas to those around you more clearly, and make considered decisions you can be confident about.
You’ve given yourself permission to be present, and your results will reflect that every time.
“Give yourself permission to be present, and your results will reflect that every time.”Click To Tweet

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