Does your business give you the freedom to do what you love? In this episode, Strategic Coach® Program Coach and Crazy Good Talks founder Deirdre Van Nest joins Shannon Waller to share how she found her entrepreneurial path. Together, they discuss how building the right team and focusing on your strengths can create more freedom, purpose, and room to grow.

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

• Why Deirdre thought not fitting into corporate life meant something was wrong with her.
• What drew Deirdre to healthcare and why she left.
• How an injury led Deirdre to discover entrepreneurship.
• Why Deirdre sees helping people grow as her purpose.
• How Deirdre went from Fearless Living Coach to speaker.
• How Deirdre helped Shannon become a more confident speaker.

Show Notes:

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make more money, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the people you serve.

If you’ve never felt at home in a traditional job, it may not be the path for you.

Making good money and having control over your time don’t automatically give you the relationships and purpose you want.

Growth isn’t just about building a bigger business; it’s also about having a better life.

Connecting with people emotionally, to the place where they make decisions from, can help you win business faster.

Having a clear process and the skills to follow it can take much of the fear out of speaking.

You don’t have to become someone else to be a great speaker.

Unique Ability® is where you have both superior skill and passion, not just something you’re good at.

It’s more useful to ask what you can improve than to dwell on what went wrong.

Giving your team the right training helps them take more off your plate.

A Self-Managing Company® doesn’t have to run without you, but it can free you up to do the work you love.

If you’re doing only what you love doing, there’s no reason to stop.

In the last episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explained how using psychometric profiles for new hires is an advantage you don't want to ignore.

Listen to Three Profiles Top Entrepreneurs Need To Know

Resources:

Crazy Good Talks

Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter

The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

Unique Ability®

What Is A Self-Managing Company®?

The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Time Management

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

EOS®

For decades, The Strategic Coach® Program has been helping entrepreneurs live their best lives. One of the first things new members receive is a set of three psychometric profiles. Business coaches Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain the importance and the benefits of what they call the “Strengths Package.”

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

• What sets the Strengths Package profiles apart from the many other options available.
• The concept that’s the cornerstone of The Strategic Coach Program.
• Why receiving profile results nearly 35 years ago was the most liberating experience of Dan’s life.
• How using profiles improves teamwork.

Show Notes:

The three profiles in Strategic Coach’s Strengths Package are Kolbe, CliftonStrengths®, and PRINT®.

The three Strengths Package profiles are extraordinarily valuable at getting to the very central concept in Strategic Coach, Unique Ability®.

Kolbe profiles tell you what activities generate happiness in your life, and what activities give you problems and failures. It measures how you can be relied on to take action.

While using profiles doesn’t guarantee success, not using them guarantees failure.

You never learn less by testing out a new idea.

Profiles provide users with a shared language.

The PRINT Profile deals with your underlying motivation, or your “motivational identity.”

Resources:

PRINT Special Offer

Unique Ability®

The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Kolbe

CliftonStrengths®

In our previous episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explained how entrepreneurs can turn their unique knowledge into capabilities that grow beyond themselves. Listen to The Entrepreneur’s Guide To Becoming An Invention Machine.

What if your company could create value for clients without depending on you to deliver it personally? Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explore why Strategic Coach® is an invention-producing enterprise, how intellectual property creates lasting value, and how entrepreneurs can turn their unique knowledge into capabilities that grow beyond themselves.

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

• How patents changed Dan’s thinking about Strategic Coach’s position in the marketplace.
• Some of the tests the U.S. Patent Bureau applies before awarding a patent.
• How and why Strategic Coach members are creating their own invention-producing enterprises.
• The steps to take before seeking a patent for a new idea.

Show Notes:

Strategic Coach has thousands of copyrights, hundreds of trademarks, and 85 patents.

Strategic Coach isn’t just a coaching company; it’s an invention-producing enterprise that creates new thinking tools for entrepreneurs.

Many coaching companies build their reputation through marketing and networking, while Strategic Coach’s intellectual property provides an additional source of marketplace credibility.

The U.S. Patent Bureau takes an adversarial approach, searching for reasons an invention may not qualify for a patent.

To receive a patent for a thinking tool, you must show that it’s unique, useful, non-obvious, and capable of producing consistent results.

Start by creating a product or service, then build the customer experience, create intellectual property, and turn it into intellectual capital that others can use.

Members experience Strategic Coach as an invention-producing enterprise through its thinking tools, teamwork, workshops, and the details of the overall experience.

Strategic Coach’s tools are tested with thousands of entrepreneurs and produce consistent results, even when taught by different coaches.

When your ideas become intellectual property, the value you create is no longer dependent on your being there personally.

Personality-based companies can grow only as far as the founder can show up, perform, and deliver the experience.

A system-based company gives other people the ability to create and deliver value using a proven method.

Ask yourself: For your company to have 10x the impact without clients ever interacting with you, how would your knowledge and capabilities have to be packaged?

Naming, documenting, and protecting your Unique Process™ is a practical first step toward making your company less dependent on you.

Resources:

What Is A Self-Managing Company®?

Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

Casting Your 4 x 4 Company by Dan Sullivan