Inside Strategic Coach: Connecting Entrepreneurs With What Really Matters

Every entrepreneur needs to be careful about who they choose as their role models. Your choices speak to your mindset, your business motivation, and your business success. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannan Waller talk about why each of Dan’s five role models made the list.

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

• The three categories that all five role models fit into.
• How Euclid’s principles are timeless.
• How the qualities of Dan’s role models influence his creation of Strategic Coach® thinking tools.
• Things most people don’t know about Shakespeare.
• The uniqueness and intelligence evident in Bach’s music.
• The ways in which all five of Dan’s role models were entrepreneurs.

Show Notes:

Your role models should have qualities you aspire to.

The one law that really governs everything is that gravity respects no angle except a 90-degree angle.

Our entire physical world has been based on one book by Euclid.

You need to understand each one of Euclid’s principles before you can understand the next.

Being exploited with food is better than dying from no food.

The vast majority of great people are not widely recognized as great during their own time.

Nobody in particular is in charge of the U.S. The rules are in charge.

The pursuit of happiness is not the same as happiness.

Being inspired by someone doesn’t mean trying to imitate them.

Edison created the model for how to systematically invent new things.

Mindsets create habits, and habits are things that work that have become automatic.

Resources:

“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calm by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

The Strategic Coach® Signature Program

If you want business success, you have to take good care of your clientele. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller discuss the difference between customer service and hospitality and reveal the right way to treat clients and customers to keep them coming back.

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

• Why customers should be treated like human beings, not transactions.
• The difference a personal touch makes.
• The importance of being interested, not just interesting.
• Why there’s a big opportunity right now to make people feel at home.
• Ways you can show people you’re paying attention.

Show Notes:

Hospitality means making people feel at home.

There’s a movement where people are trying to make human beings more like machines.

The more dependence there is on technology, the less there’s a sense of personal connection.

If you have to write out customer service rules, the rules aren’t a habit. 

The point of hospitality is showing appreciation for your clientele. 

Remembering small details about your clients can make a huge impact. 

There’s a lot of competition to be interesting, but there’s almost no competition to be interested.

Every person is smart in their own way.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Anything And Everything Podcast with Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

How do you stand firm in a world that seems to be in flux? It’s easier than you might think. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain the three rules for staying cool and calm so you can achieve business success and business growth no matter what’s happening in the world.

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

• Why entrepreneurs don’t need to ask permission to create.
• The importance of company ground rules.
• Why it’s helpful for entrepreneurs to recognize that life isn’t fair.
• Why some people need to be controlled by other people’s laws
• The real definition of creativity.
• The five “credibility rules.”

Show Notes:

If you want somebody to be in charge, you have to be the one in charge.

If we aren’t enforcing the rules, the rules don’t matter.

All the knowledge that we have was made up by someone.

After you make something up, you have to communicate it in such a way that other people will find it useful.

Entrepreneurs are the masters of making up new things.

Political leaders aren’t in charge; they’re fulfilling a role according to a set of rules.

Your new ideas will advantage some people and disadvantage others.

There used to be so much scarcity in the world that you couldn’t think about things like fairness and equality.

Freedom is maximizing being inside of restrictions.

Nothing you come up with has any value until somebody is willing to write you a check for it.

Economic breakdown usually comes from government mismanagement.

Rules allow you to have your attention on the main thing rather than on the small things.

Resources:

“Geometry” For Staying Cool & Calm by Dan Sullivan

The Impact Filter™

Every so often, there are major world events that affect things economically and can lead to people feeling a lot of uncertainty. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller talk about the best business strategy an entrepreneur can take to make sure their business not only survives, but thrives while other people are feeling uncertain about the future.

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

• How Strategic Coach® acquired a whole new capability during COVID lockdowns.
• The advice Dan gave clients after 9/11.
• What a lot of people’s futures depend on.
• The single question that will renew clients’ sense of their future.
• Things clients can work on while cash flow is an issue.
• Why it’s really easy to compete during an economic downturns.
• Why Dan predicts scary times for most of the world over the coming decades.

Show Notes:

Big companies and corporations make all their gains and market share during bad times.

Economic downturns are always going to happen, so it makes sense to develop a skill around them.

Instead of worrying about yourself, you have to give other people a chance to be clear about their future.

As the leader of the company, your number one daily job during uncertain times is to keep everybody's confidence high.

Everybody is coming from different worlds when they come into work.

You should come out of a period of uncertainty with the same team you went into it with in terms of numbers and in terms of the power of your team.

When uncertainty happens, most people lose their ability to take action.

You haven’t solved a problem until you can laugh about it.

Your job during uncertain times is to go out and create new futures for all of your clients and prospects.

A client’s money is frozen when their brain is frozen.

Resistance and uncertainty are normal for entrepreneurs.

If you allow external forces to control your future, you’re not being an entrepreneur.

Resources:

The Positive Focus® tool

Scary Times Success Manual by Dan Sullivan

The Dan Sullivan Question by Dan Sullivan

Peter Zeihan’s YouTube channel

Entrepreneurs innovate by drawing connections between things that haven’t been linked before. But how can you go about making such connections? In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain Dan’s latest breakthrough thinking tool, The Triple Play.

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

• How creativity is a method you can master.
• How you can tell whether an activity is creative.
• What types of connections get people excited.
• Why Dan preferred to make his own toys as a child.

Show Notes:

We don’t discover connections; we make connections.

Creativity is connecting things where you didn’t see the connection before.

Not many people are creative enough to build an independent career in the marketplace.

You’re not really creative if you’re not surprising yourself.

Your brain can’t ignore a question.

Children play according to a method of connecting things that don’t belong together.

People's directed usefulness is achieved at the cost of creativity.

Imaginative thinkers make more money than people who are uniform and predictable.

Creating connections is how our brains get used to the world.

Resources:

Capitalism—And Everything Else by Dan Sullivan

Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

Visual Thinking by Dr. Temple Grandin

Every entrepreneur would love to be able to predict the future, but of course it’s impossible. The future is always being created by every human being on the planet every day making guesses and bets about their individual future. There's no way of understanding or even detecting what kind of guesses and bets eight billion people are making today, when they weren’t even thinking about it yesterday. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain the importance of understanding why it’s all about guessing and betting, and how you can make the best guesses and bets for business success and business growth in your future.

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

• Why we’ll never get beyond technology just being reactive.
• Why artificial intelligence is based on the past, not the future.
• The big bet that Dan and Babs made before starting The Strategic Coach® Program in 1989.
• How to find team members you don’t have to manage, monitor, or motivate.

Show Notes:

Humans have always had a desire to predict the future.

Technology can’t be superior to the human thinking that goes into it.

An entrepreneur betting on something means they commit their time, their activity, and in some cases, their money to a particular activity.

People have far more freedom on an individual basis now than they did a century ago.

Individual team members need to take themselves at least as seriously as management does.

Predictions are just guessing and betting based on what’s happened up until now.

You’re making a guess and a bet when you hire a team member.

If you look into how a technology is created, you know what to expect from it and what not to expect.

A great team member has to be great at what they do and great at playing with others.

Some people strive for a role they aren’t good at because in their minds it has higher status.

Resources:

Unique Ability

Capitalism—And Everything Else by Dan Sullivan

The Self-Managing Company by Dan Sullivan

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

Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller

When asked if they think they’re able to 10x their current income, most entrepreneurs aren’t confident that they can. But when presented with a different way to think about it, it becomes clear that it’s actually easier to go 10x than it is to go 2x. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain how to change your thinking so you’re ready to 10x your company’s income.

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

• The mindset shift that happens when you realize you’ve gone 10x before.
• Insights you can gain from your previous jumps in income.
• Why your team members might try to prevent change at the company.
• How Strategic Coach® has gone 10x more than once.
• Why people have to make things up to scare themselves nowadays.
• The difference between “status entrepreneurs” and “growth entrepreneurs.”

Show Notes:

• Whenever someone goes 10x, they’ve gotten rid of a lot of activities they’d been doing.
• Going 10x means hiring people to do activities they’re great at.
• Growing your income means going after bigger and bigger check writers.
• Entrepreneurs should be using technology to expand the power of their teamwork.
• Growing your income might involve new collaborations with individuals outside of your company.
• You make up the future, but you don’t make up your past.
• The first time you go 10x, what you did couldn’t be predicted. The second time, you have a pattern to follow.
• Most people want a bigger result without having to change themselves or what they’re doing.
• 10x is multidimensional thinking, while 2x is linear thinking.
• How other people went 10x is meaningless information because it’s not the way you did it.
• You won’t go 10x unless doing so will result in greater freedom.
• A 10x quantitative jump is meaningless unless it’s also a 10x qualitative jump.
• Entrepreneurial growth calls for constant transformation and change.

Resources:

The 10x Mind Expander by Dan Sullivan

The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy

Article: “The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs”

The Strategic Coach® Program

What are your time and skill worth to somebody else? The issue of pricing is the biggest hurdle to people thinking about becoming entrepreneurs because most people live their lives with someone else doing their pricing for them. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain the best way for entrepreneurs to determine what to charge.

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

• How an entrepreneur can switch mindsets from being the seller to being the buyer.
• Why entrepreneurs should actually stay away from competitive pricing.
• Why the fastest way to your biggest future is The Strategic Coach® Program.
• The question that will take your clients into the future, and you with them.
• Why you shouldn’t negotiate unless what you’re offering is unique.
• The importance of being attuned to your clients’ futures.

Show Notes:

• Most people don’t like negotiating what their value is with someone else.
• If you’re applying for a job, it’s generally predetermined what the value is of doing that job.
• For entrepreneurs, the combination of time and talent determines the price that needs to be negotiated.
• There’s no right price for anything because all pricing is psychological.
• If your client doesn’t have a big future, your price is a cost. If they have a big future, your price is an investment.
• If you focus on your uniqueness, you aren’t in competition with anyone.
• The toughest obstacle to being a successful entrepreneur is getting to where you feel proud and confident about the ways you've priced your value in the marketplace.
• Many people don’t have a proper appreciation of their own value, and so they don’t like negotiating.
• Some entrepreneurs spend too much time worrying about people who aren’t check writers.
• Pricing is a lot easier if you have no competitors.

Resources:

Capitalism—And Everything Else by Dan Sullivan

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

Deep D.O.S. Innovation by Dan Sullivan

Enterprise Value: How the Best Owner-Managers Build Their Fortune, Capture Their Company's Gains, and Create Their Legacy by Peter R. Worrell

Every entrepreneur engages with their past, but if they don’t know the right way to do it, it can be painful and get in the way of business growth. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain how to engage your past with a growth mindset and gain business lessons from all of your experiences.

The latest book by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy is 10X Is Easier Than 2X.

Available for pre-order now.

While the typical entrepreneur might be focused on the future, you simply can’t underestimate the importance of your past. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller discuss the best way for entrepreneurs to engage with, and utilize, their past experiences.