Inside Strategic Coach: Connecting Entrepreneurs With What Really Matters

Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller cut through the predictions of unlimited business growth. They explain why the cost of four key elements crucial to business success are on the rise. It's a straightforward conversation about what entrepreneurs should anticipate, and practical steps you can take to navigate the changes ahead.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• Why we’re entering a working person’s market.
• Why energy is going to be cheap only in the United States.
• How the four crucial factors influence each other.

Show Notes:

90% of all transport happens on water. And the cost of water transportation is going through the roof right now.

Over the next 25 years, the only place where energy will be guaranteed to be cheap is the United States.

The four crucial MELT factors are money, energy, labor, and transportation.

The costs of the MELT factors are going to rise over the next 25 years.

It’s important to find a way to finance yourself that doesn’t involve debt.

You shouldn’t be giving up a lot of your company just to get your growth money or your survival money.

The U.S. is going to start using tariffs for foreign-produced goods.

We're now in a period where the whole world is going through the greatest loss of skilled knowledge and skilled know-how in history, and this period will probably continue for another decade.

It’s going to get more and more expensive to hire really great people.

The last three years have seen the fastest, biggest growth of new industry and new manufacturing in the history of the United States.

Entrepreneurs are successful to the degree that they solve the D.O.S.® issues (dangers, opportunities, and strengths) of their client base.

Automating what used to be strictly human work is a very slow process.

Resources:

Deep D.O.S. Innovationby Dan Sullivan

Your Life As A Strategy Circleby Dan Sullivan

Strategic Coach® has a unique company culture. Only the best team members stay there, and each has unique capabilities and a growth mindset. In this episode, business coaches Shannon Waller and Dan Sullivan explain how other entrepreneurs can go about creating a Coach-like culture in their own organizations.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• Why everyone at Strategic Coach must have a growth mindset.
• The main value Strategic Coach creates for its entrepreneurial clients.
• How Dan helps entrepreneurs focus on doing only what they love doing.
• How Strategic Coach clients get added value from comparing notes with one another.
• Why many entrepreneurs never get far beyond their own capabilities.
• A simple way to ensure every meeting is positive and productive.
• How you know you’re not in competition with anyone.

Show Notes:

Strategic Coach clients learn in a community where everyone is a successful, talented, and ambitious entrepreneur.

Nothing turns a person off more than someone not practicing what they preach.

All the thinking tools that Strategic Coach clients master are the same ones that Strategic Coach team members master.

Strategic Coach clients use Coach thinking tools to organize both their business and work lives.

Strategic Coach clients and Strategic Coach team members advance in their careers in the same way.

Strategic Coach clients learn how to have complete congruity between their behind-the-scenes activities and what clients see.

The obstacles to your goals are your raw material for achieving them.

Quantitative measurements really focus entrepreneurs’ brains.

In 2024, Dan Sullivan will have been coaching entrepreneurs for 50 years.

An entrepreneur in one part of the world totally understands an entrepreneur in another part of the world.

There’s a whole relationship that develops from a coach helping a client think more clearly.

Resources:

Everyone And Everything Growsby Dan Sullivan — coming December 2023!

Who Not Howby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Your Life As A Strategy Circleby Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

The Positive Focus®

The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management

Entrepreneurs have more to be grateful for than most people who experience business success. In this episode, guest host Gord Vickman and business coach Dan Sullivan share entrepreneur ideas about all there is to appreciate about running your own business.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• How it benefits team members to free up the entrepreneur.
• A way to start fresh every day.
• Where all of Dan’s gratitude starts.
• How to ensure every meeting is positive.
• The only accurate way to measure progress.
• How AI has changed the podcast production process.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs tend to be a lot more grateful for their work lives than people who haven't created their own companies.

You can’t be complaining and grateful at the same time.

If you’re saying you’re excited about something, it’s implicit in that that you’re grateful for it.

Strategic Coach clients use Coach thinking tools in their personal lives as well as their work lives.

The entrepreneurial instinct starts before age ten.

Entrepreneurially minded people know that money is the key to gaining independence.

A lot of entrepreneurs are trying to escape from their beginnings.

Negative experiences can be uniquely valuable for you if they lead to course corrections.

Everything we're grateful for is because we appreciate the value of it.

If you measure your progress against the ideal, you eliminate all the value of what you’ve achieved.

Resources:

The Positive Focus®

Unique Ability®

The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan

Strategic Podcasts

The Impact Filter™

Dan Sullivan and guest co-host Gord Vickman explore the innovative concepts

within the Transformation Trilogy and the collaboration behind their success.

Discover the driving force behind Dan's creation ofWho Not How,The Gap And The Gain, and10x Is Easier Than 2x, as he shares personal anecdotes, inspiration, and insights gainedalong the way. He also delves into the evolution of these books, their impact on entrepreneursworldwide, and the invaluable lessons you can apply to your own successful journey.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• The people Dan needed to meet in order for these books to happen.
• How Dan realized his three major market books were a trilogy.
• Feedback Dan’s gotten from clients about the Transformation Trilogy.
• Possible plans for more major market books based on Coach concepts.

Show Notes:

Work always takes the time that’s allotted for it.

Life is taking advantage of everything that wasn’t planned.

Dan first had the idea for books as something to assist and support what the other Strategic Coach coaches were doing.

Recognizing that consumers want to get information very quickly, Dan came up with the 60-minute book format.

When Dan was 70, he committed to putting out one book every quarter for the next 25 years.

There’s now a 10-person team around Dan on the Strategic Coach quarterly book project.

The origin of every Strategic Coach thinking tool is Dan asking entrepreneurs a question about their experience.

Everything in the Strategic Coach Program and the way the company is run is a function of equipping people with thinking tools to improve their entrepreneurial life.

The number one rule governing the Strategic Coach universe is free Dan up to focus on what he does best.

Resources:

Who Not How

The Gap and the Gain

10x Is Easier than 2x

The Transformation Trilogy

Every entrepreneur would love to go 10x. So what’s holding them back? In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller share the mindset you need to experience major business growth.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• The incorrect way that most people interpret 10x.
• How you can learn about going 10x from looking at your past.
• Why people are currently experiencing 10x greater growth very easily.
• How to think of 10x in terms of entrepreneurial freedoms.

Show Notes:

The world is progressing on the basis of new tools, new technologies, and new opportunities.

We’ve all gone 10x many times in our lives.

It’s useful for entrepreneurs to look at how they’ve grown within the framework of their entrepreneurial lives.

You can look at massive growth as a series of 10x jumps.

If you don’t have a deadline for it, it’s only a wish.

Entrepreneurs don’t drive themselves crazy with their goals, they drive themselves crazy with their deadlines.

Money you make can be good or bad depending on the activity and who is writing you the check.

The four entrepreneurial freedoms are freedom of time, money, relationship, and purpose.

All entrepreneurs seek the freedom to focus on whatever they want to focus on.

Looking ahead doesn’t tell you how to go 10x.

Change is a natural part of being an entrepreneur.

Resources:

10x Is Easier Than 2xby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Four Freedoms

The Self-Managing Companyby Dan Sullivan

Entrepreneurs often need to be creative to have a profitable business. What do you do when you aren’t a creative person? In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller talk about the “why” and “how” of imitating other people in order to achieve business success.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• Why we imitate other people’s performance.
• The reason Dan never attends workshops by other coaches.
• How real creativity involves grafting.
• How uses of technology can be a step back instead of a step forward.

Show Notes:

There are two timeless ways of learning and improving yourself: imitating other people's performance, and repetition.

Humans are the only species that can use their brains to accessthe uniqueness of other people's brains.

We all imitate other people, whether we like to admit it or not.

If you're creative, and you come across someone who's more creative, you imitate, but at a certain point, you make it your own.

What an imitating person does, and for how long they do it, tells you whether they're just an imitator or whether they're creative.

If you appreciate someone else’s skills, you can translate them into your own world.

Creative people can be polarizing.

You create a new capability using vision and obstacles.

The combination of two people’s uniqueness creates something brand new.

People who imitate but aren’t creative are stealing.

In a world of AI imitation, creative people are going to get wildly more creative to differentiate themselves from robots.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Your Life As A Strategy Circleby Dan Sullivan

A lot of people go to great lengths to always appear busy. But should you really see being busy as a badge of honor? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain why the answer is “no.”

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• What busy people are really after.
• How busy people are actually wasting energy.
• How to achieve results more easily using teamwork.
• Why there’s a real cost for entrepreneurs who are focused on being busy.

Show Notes:

People try to establish their value by always being busy.

Being busy has nothing to do with any kind of results.

As results oriented people get better at what they do, they achieve their desired results by being less busy.

Depending on the rules you set up in your company, either being busy or achieving results will be rewarded.

Busy people see it as dangerous to not be seen on any workday.

In large bureaucracies, you get promoted on the basis of your busyness because the organization’s purpose is to be seen as busy.

Entrepreneurial companies get connected to the marketplace very quickly.

There’s no progress without measurement.

Entrepreneurs tend to make for really lousy employees.

We’re always ignorant and incapable when we start anything new.

Resources:

“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calmby Dan Sullivan

The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management

Article: Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage by Shannon Waller

The 4 C’s Formulaby Dan Sullivan

There are major differences between regular entrepreneurs and 10x entrepreneurs. Do you know which type you are? In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain what makes someone a 10x entrepreneur and reveal the best things you can do if you are one.

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Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• What you can tell about an entrepreneur by how they talk about their goals.
• The best types of goals for entrepreneurs to have.
• What makes an entrepreneur a good fit for The Strategic Coach® Program.
• The entrepreneur motivation and growth mindset that mean you’ll never stop growing.
• The question that gives an entrepreneur a bigger future.
• How to surround yourself with other constantly growing people.

Show Notes:

Dreams and wishes aren’t measurable, but goals are.

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10x entrepreneurs constantly think, “What we have now is great, but what does it look like when it’s 10x?”

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The reward for going 10x is that you get to do it again.

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10x entrepreneurs aren’t looking for quick fixes; they’re looking to put in the work and time to get to a higher level.

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Over time, you get better at recognizing what’s worth your time and what isn’t.

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Only one out of every 400 entrepreneurs would be a good fit for The Strategic Coach Program.

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Status is a byproduct of capability.

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You only know you have greater capability if you’re getting greater results.

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People who are always striving for greater capability never stop growing.

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A person who is growth-minded might worry about outgrowing someone who isn’t growing.

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What makes a business complicated is the social pressure from outside of you.

Resources:

The 4 C’s Formulaby Dan Sullivan

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The Entrepreneur’s Guide To 10x Growth

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The Multiplier Mindset® Podcast

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Every entrepreneur should expect surprises because surprises are a part of reality. How you respond to them is key to whether you’re a happy, successful entrepreneur. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller discuss how entrepreneurs can use both good and bad surprises for business success and business growth.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• Why really successful entrepreneurs don’t care if a surprise is good or bad.
• How bad surprises can turn into good surprises.
• What happens to people who try to make the future free of surprises.
• The best way to respond to good surprises.
• The best mindset to have when it comes to bad surprises.

Show Notes:

Being taken by surprise means nothing you were preparing for, or nothing you expected to happen, actually happened.

You can do different things with a good surprise than you can with a bad surprise, and vice versa.

More clearly than almost anything else, surprises tell you what kind of person you are.

With bad surprises, you have no choice about how you have to respond because your survival may be at stake.

You can decide that whenever you’re inconvenienced, you’ll get a much bigger result instead of just getting back to where you were.

People who are entrepreneurial take greater advantage of bad surprises than good surprises.

Good surprises can help you up your level of ambition.

You have very, very little control over events outside of yourself.

Resources:

The Front Stage/Back Stage Model® article

Who Not Howby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Gap And The Gainby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

10x Is Easier Than 2xby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Experience Transformer® tool

Scary Times Success Manualby Dan Sullivan

The world has become more competitive, and many people are focused on the concept of fairness. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain what fairness really means and what every entrepreneur needs to understand to avoid certain dangers.

Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode:

• The different definitions of “fairness.”
• Why you shouldn’t compare yourself to others.
• How there’s a touch of envy in talking about fairness.
• How to recognize your uniqueness and avoid false comparisons.

Show Notes:

No one knows what it’s like to be someone else.

Who you are can be modified by who other people are.

Reactive and creative are opposites.

The word “fairness” is a fairly recent creation.

The present understanding of fairness touches on equality.

Fairness is a social term, not a descriptive term.

A lot in our world supports the fact that things should be fair.

Uniqueness means looking inside and knowing who you are.

If you’re looking for fairness, you can’t find out who you are.

Resources:

“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calmby Dan Sullivan

CliftonStrengths®

ENVY: A Theory of Social Behaviourby Helmut Schoeck

Who Not Howby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Gap And The Gainby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

10x Is Easier Than 2xby Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Unique Ability®

Unique Ability® 2.0: Discoveryby Catherine Nomura, Julia Waller, and Shannon Waller

The Kolbe A™ Index