Inside Strategic Coach: Connecting Entrepreneurs With What Really Matters

Latest Episodes:

The Growth Mindset That Extends Your Lifetime Feb 06, 2024

Show notes

Exciting advances are being made in the area of life extension. Business coach Dan Sullivan, having set a goal for himself in 1987 to live to the age of 156, has been keeping close track of the trends. In this episode, he and Shannon Waller talk about what people should know if they’re interested in living a great life as long as possible.

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

Why Dan chose age 156 as his goal.
The profound impact Dan’s growth mindset has had on his thinking.
The simple thinking exercise that can add decades to your life.
Major breakthroughs that have happened in the longevity field.
Why longevity is going to be an area of great inequality.

Show Notes:

The body really pays attention to what your mind is thinking.

The majority of Strategic Coach® clients are planning to live to at least 100.

Human progress is created out of human aspiration.

People’s longevity goals are having an impact on medicine, science, and technology.

All the longevity breakthroughs have happened within the last ten years.

All of our cells are specialized cells, but they all come from a kind of universal cell.

AI can turn one kind of information into another kind of information.

There's a profound mindset change going on in medicine, that all disease is just an aspect of aging.

Your chronological age and your biological age can be different.

Regeneration is taking what's healthy and keeping it healthy. Repair is taking what's damaged and making it healthy again.

If enough people want to live longer, as a whole, we’re going to live longer.

Resources:

My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

Why Entrepreneurs Must Be Clear On Their Own Perspectives Jan 24, 2024

Show notes

While some people think it’s a good idea to take neutral positions, Dan Sullivan says entrepreneurs need to avoid this. In this episode, he and fellow business coach Shannon Waller discuss the business motivation for always choosing a side.

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

Why trying to be neutral doesn’t teach you anything or get you anywhere
How to know your own standards.
How Strategic Coach® clients learn about themselves.
The way to strengthen your position using opposing views.

Show Notes:

When you pick a side, you immediately begin learning an enormous amount about the side you’ve chosen and why you’ve chosen it.

If you try to be a neutral person, you just disappear because you’re not for anything.

A lot of people have very strong opinions about their thinking but have no real foundation or basis for their thinking.

The most successful entrepreneurs bet on themselves 100%.

You only become successful by making increasingly more successful judgments.

Obstacles are the raw material for achieving your goals.

Every person is a complete universe of experience and learning.

Other people do things for their reasons, not your reasons.

You can only have a conversation if you show respect for who the other person is.

It’s only if you respect other people’s opinions that you can reverse your own.

Emotions come before our thinking.

You don’t pick a side out of thinking; you pick a side out of feeling.

Resources:

The Impact Filter

Your Life As A Strategy Circle

The Entrepreneur's Guide to Time Management

The Communist Manifesto

A Step By Step Process For Extraordinary Business Success Jan 09, 2024

Show notes

At most companies, when something goes wrong, an individual gets the blame. At Strategic Coach®, on the other hand, we ask whether the individual could have been better set up for success. In this episode, business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain how the Coach environment is set up so that everyone at the company has the best shot of performing at their best and contributing the greatest value.

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

The positive change that new Strategic Coach team members can take advantage of.
What will cause a new Coach team member to be rejected.
Why envy shouldn’t be tolerated in a company culture.
The importance of congruency in a company.
Why Dan doesn’t want to think about how any of his team members are interacting with clients.
Dan’s growth mindset toward his position at Coach.

Show Notes:

A company can create the structures and the processes where any good person can decide to be a great person.

If you trust in your team members, you’ll save yourself a lot of worry.

Envious people feel inferior from birth.

The ultimate proof that people aren't envious is that they innovate new things that everybody applauds them for.

The outlook that you’re born with is very much subject to the circumstances you’re born into.

In all your teamwork interactions, make sure everyone else knows where you’re coming from and what you’re trying to achieve.

Team members should be freed up to focus on what they’re uniquely good at and love doing.

People who are relaxed and confident can be more creative.

If your company does new things, you need people’s creativity.

In bureaucracies and large corporations, you’re expected to be very good at doing several things.

Resources:

Video: Tips For Exceptional Company Performance

The Positive Focus®

The Transformation Trilogy by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy

Unique Ability®

The Impact Filter™

Four Factors That Determine Business Growth Are “M.E.L.T.” Dec 20, 2023

Show notes

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. Innovation by Dan Sullivan

Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

Ignite Unlimited Business Growth The Strategic Coach Way Dec 12, 2023

Show notes

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 Grows by Dan Sullivan — coming December 2023!

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

The Positive Focus®

The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management

Why Gratitude Is Critical For A Growth Mindset Nov 28, 2023

Show notes

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™

The Transformation Trilogy: Your Road Map To Entrepreneurial Success Nov 14, 2023

Show notes

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 of Who Not How, The Gap And The Gain, and 10x Is Easier Than 2x, as he shares personal anecdotes, inspiration, and insights gained along the way. He also delves into the evolution of these books, their impact on entrepreneurs worldwide, 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

Can You Guess The One Thing Holding Entrepreneurs Back From 10x Business Growth? Oct 31, 2023

Show notes

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 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Four Freedoms

The Self-Managing Company by Dan Sullivan

How To Spot The Copycat Among Creative Entrepreneurs Oct 17, 2023

Show notes

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 access the 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 Circle by Dan Sullivan

Surprising Business Lessons About "Busy" Entrepreneurs Oct 03, 2023

Show notes

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: