When Patti Mara graduated from university in the recession of 1989, she couldn’t get a job—so she made one up instead. In this episode, Patti shares how she’s achieved entrepreneurial success, the exciting new project she’s launching to support local businesses, and what she’s learned as a long-time coach in The Strategic Coach® Program.

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

• The invaluable resource that Patti turned to when she realized she didn’t know how to build a business.
• Some of the most helpful tools Patti learned in her first year at Strategic Coach®.
• The difference between tasks and results.
• The value in separating the fault from the problem.
• “magic” that happens in every Strategic Coach workshop.

Show Notes:

• Entrepreneurship often emerges out of necessity, but being good at making up a job for yourself doesn’t mean you know how to build a business.
• Strategic Coach concepts can dramatically shift an entrepreneur's mindset and ability to build a thriving organization.
• Every coach at Strategic Coach is also a Program member who uses Coach tools and concepts in their own business.
• What you sell is actually the vehicle for how you create value.
• Your business is the value you create to the people you want to work with.
• Everyone wants to feel like they’re winning.
• When team members feel like their roles serve a greater purpose, the whole company culture shifts.
• And once you recognize team members as experts in their roles, you can encourage their innovation and sense of ownership.
• When you empower team members to solve problems rather than to focus on who was at fault, customer interactions get much better.
• Awareness and mindset are more impactful than specific skills when training team members.

Resources:

Blog: Time Management Strategies For Entrepreneurs (Effective Strategies Only)

Unique Ability®

The 10x Mind Expander by Dan Sullivan

Turning Teams into Heroes and Customers into Raving Fans by Patti Mara

UpSolutions Team Success Program

Blog: What Is A Self-Managing Company®?

Tool: The Positive Focus®

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Podcast: Team Success

pattimara.com

wechooselocal.com

Entrepreneurs need to be ambitious. But what happens when you achieve your ambition? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain the drawbacks of having ambition as a destination and describe the incredible benefits you can expect when you see ambition as a capability.

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

• Why Dan sees ambition as an internal capability.
• Measurements you should be making every day.
• What’s made Dan’s life simpler over time.
• How Dan gifts Strategic Coach® members extra years to their entrepreneurial lives.
• What you need to avoid to be continually ambitious, and why.

Show Notes:

• Ambition is a capability, not a destination.
• Simply by continually improving your ambition each day, you’ll experience exponential growth over time.
• Dan Sullivan feels more ambitious at 80 than he did at 50.
• To strengthen your ambition, it’s important to measure your daily accomplishments and strive for continal growth.
• You can measure your progress not just in achievements, but in the ability to accomplish more in less time with greater impact.
• Ambition itself should be measured in terms of increased capability and confidence.
• Simplifying life by eliminating distractions (like television) can reclaim valuable time for personal development and ambitious pursuits.
• Surrounding yourself with growth-oriented individuals, often younger, can inspire and fuel your ambition.
• To be continually ambitious, there are three things you should avoid: celebrity, retirement, and legacy.
• It’s important to focus on being useful and impactful in the present rather than worrying about future legacy.
• Viewing ambition as a capability can also help you feel more fulfilled personally—and have a greater impact on your community.
• Every day, ask yourself what you can do so that you’re more ambitious tomorrow.
• Being around people who aren’t invested in growth is an obstacle to your ambition.

Resources:

CliftonStrengths®

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

For many entrepreneurs who achieve business success early in their lives, repeating that success can be difficult. It’s called the success trap, and in this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain what the success trap is, why it’s difficult to escape, and how you can safely avoid falling into it.

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

• Why some entrepreneurs eventually go on auto-pilot.
• How experiencing a crisis can actually be beneficial to an entrepreneur.
• Why Dan doesn’t take people who are growing and succeeding in their thirties as seriously as people who are growing and succeeding in their sixties.
• How inheriting wealth can lead to a success trap too.
• What’s allowed Dan to be fitter, healthier, and more ambitious at 80 than he was at 50.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs who are motivated solely by status will stop once they reach a certain point.

You can lack purpose and the motivation to keep growing yet still find it hard to make a change because the money is good.

Setbacks can be a wake-up call to reinvent yourself and reclaim your drive.

Success is comfortable, while failure is scary, painful, and frustrating.

Failures are prompts for new learning.

Entrepreneurs who are successful over the long haul have learned how to turn failure into a new form of success.

When someone’s successful early in life, it can be difficult to tell how much of that success was due to their capabilities and character and how much of it was simply investment from others.

For some, entrepreneurism is a freedom only from where they came from.

Status-motivated entrepreneurs are very boring, and usually a bit depressed.

Creating wealth is only valuable because it makes you more capable and confident as an entrepreneur.

You need resistance in order to grow.

Growth has to come from within.

For growth-motivated entrepreneurs, the lifestyle that comes with success is just a happy by-product of their drive, not the destination.

Ambition isn’t a destination, it’s a capability.