Over the past several months I have been developing a clear focus on where my career as a leadership development expert is heading. It relates to the title of this post. My sincere appreciation to Gail Horton of the University of Laverne for helping me to clarify this statement.

My career objective is to help you “Lead Your Life”

Whether that makes me a career coach, life coach, or a leadership coach I am not certain I care. The label is so far less important than the clarity on the direction.

Lead Your Life

LEAD

You have heard me talk about leadership so much already that this word needs little introduction. Leadership always starts with a firm self knowledge and awareness. It is about being comfortable in your own skin, having a sense of peace with who you are and who you are becoming. A confident conviction to lead from this place allows us to lead and act in the face of criticism and adversity.

YOUR

It is yours you know. I meet so many people who simply react to life. Its like they are an extra in a movie about their own life. To use my favorite Star Trek reference, its almost as if they want to play the role of the red shirt. You know the extra who joins the away team going to explore strange planets only to die when they encounter a threatening life form.

Are you the star of the movie called “Your Life” or are you just a red shirt where stuff just happens to you.

LIFE

I look at this planet and this journey with a sense of wonder. What can I learn,who can I meet, what can I experience, what difference can I make? I cannot stand hanging out in Abraham Maslow’s basement. Okay yes I might go to his basement freezer once in a while when I am hungry. Don’t we all? My goal is simple live in the attic making a difference everywhere I go. For me building a life is about designing the movie called “My Life” and then acting it out with a smile in my heart.

This is what I do. I help people learn to lead their life.

If you want to lead your life, you need to contact me. The sooner the better. Time is a ticking.

Ron

Are you out of work? Out of hope?

I am looking to provide a few deserving individuals with scholarships
for career coaching.

* If you live in California
* Are full time in the workforce (but unemployed)
* Motivated to get out of your current situation
* Willing to share your story and testimony when we finish

you may qualify!

I will be taking on a few clients who meet these conditions at a 80%
reduction in my normal coaching rate.

How can I do this?

1. I know that coaching is so powerful that I am looking to
expand my reach and make a difference with more clients.

2. I know this is something I can do to help America get back to work

3. I recognize that it can be a hardship to someone who lost their job to be able to afford a career coach and want to remove that barrier for a few deserving folks.

What can you expect to recieve?

This scholarship will subsidize 5 hours of career coaching. Typically in coaching 5 hours has the ability to help the motivated client
generate significant momentum and change.

In the 5 hours we will
set goals for your achievement
build awareness of who you are
plan how you can execute your goals
explore what barriers may be holding you back from achievement and plan to overcome them
celebrate your success!

How can you take advantage of this scholarship on career coaching?

Contact me quickly at ronn.hurst@gmail.com, or text me at nine zero nine seven two eight three five five seven.

When will this opportunity end?

Once the first three candidates have been chosen this offer will close. First come first serve!

What’s the catch?

there isnt one. I want to help you succeed. All I ask is that you meet the criteria, follow through on the coaching outcomes and be willing
to share your story.

Do I have to pay anything?

Yes this is not a free offer but a scholarship. You have to invest in your own success. After the 80% reduction your cost will be $25 per
hour for 5 hours or 125$ total due at the start of the first coaching session. This is a ridiculous price that I can’t believe I am
offering. But as I said I want to do my part for the people of California and get America working.

ACT NOW

Ron

Part 2 of the ongoing podcast series in designing and delivering a message with meaning is included in the link. Leader Talk 2

Leader Cast:
Leader Talk 1

When you leverage the skills you have they will work for a time. But eventually like anything else overusing the same old tired skills will result in underperformance. Upgrading your skill base enables you to continually challenge yourself and your team to achieve new levels of performance. I suppose you could just wake up everyday to the same old boring dream like Bill Murray did in Groundhog Day…or you could leverage the precise abilities of a leadership coach to help you grow in targeted areas that will strategically increase your abilities and your results.

Which will it be leader?

We added a number of new pages to the site today. Up until now this site has been primarily about sharing information about all things leadership and other topics that interest us here at Developing Leaders.

That was then…

You will now find out coaching service offer

Coaching offer

our training program offer

Business Training Courses

testimonials on our services from our clients

Testimonials

We also added a bio page for Coach Ron

Coach Ron Bio

Week 3 saw me back in my base office ready to take on the world. My confirmed client schedule well defined and a list of prospects looming on my whiteboard just waiting to be called.

Not a Natural Salesman

I am not a natural salesman. The thought of getting in front of someone to ask them for money in exchange for a product or service is not something I crave. Like most people of a technical background there is a small sense of fear that their rejection of my product or service is in fact a proxy for a rejection of me. However a funny thing happens when sales is no longer a hobby, no longer an intellectual curiosity to be viewed from the sidelines. No, now my business success rides on my ability to ask for the sale and close the deal.

It was funny how smoothly I was able to make the transition. Not that I am particularly good at it yet. Just that I had no problem doing it right away. In week three I would close two new coaching contracts that brought me ever closer to my monthly revenue target. It was exciting to do this and to gain the confidence that I could do this.

What did I learn?

Sales is a Relationship sport

Selling to someone you do not know is infinitely harder than doing so with someone who knows and trusts you. As a coach selling in a high trust context this is especially true. The maintenance of a trust based professional relationship cannot be over stressed. Since I had these in place my first several contracts in the first month were relatively straight forward to close. Not easy in any way just straight forward. It is clear to me that the development of a relationship will continue to be an important aspect of the process. Now it should also be said that referrals are a great proxy for an established relationship. When someone refers you, you enter into the sales discussion with the referrers credibility. If you maintain professionalism and passion for your service and can in fact meet the prospects needs you stand a very good chance of closing these deals as well.

Confidence in your service is crucial

Have you ever tried to represent something you did not quite believe in? You just can’t give it everything you are can you? Deep down you know that your integrity cannot fully support this thing and must hold back. Holding back comes through in our behaviors and ultimately in the confidence or lack thereof we demonstrate. No you must believe in what you are selling in order to be effective especially in the high trust environments of personal services. As a coach I have a deep confidence that I can help my clients. I have too many success stories to think otherwise. I am blessed with helping people to transform their lives into higher levels of productivity, capability and confidence. No for me I know that I know I can help my clients and my prospective clients. It is easy to be in front of them and discuss how the process can help them transform their lives.

GO ahead make a mistake or two most people will give you grace anyway

Okay many of you get this already and my technical brethren will appreciate this as I do, sometimes you need to just go and do something. The act of executing a “good enough” plan is infinitely more important than a “perfect plan” waiting to be executed. Sometimes we need to just go forth and DO, make mistakes, stumble a bit and figure things out. I have found that people have grace for you if you are not quite polished, not quite perfect. In fact it makes you more human more approachable more credible. Not that we should manipulate this to our benefit but whatever you do waiting until the perfect plan has been birthed is a strategy for FAILURE. Don’t fail, make mistakes learn and grow. Its good for the soul and the cash flow…

So these are my thoughts on week 3. Next post we talk about week four and closing out a month.

Okay but there was this one little thing bugging the daylights out of me all week. That little thing is the subject of today’s post.

Planning, strategy, goals…

You could say that I am not the most organized person in the world and you would be correct. My point of view is to take care of the big rocks and let the little stuff take care of itself. So what happens when I don’t take care of the big rocks?

Chaos. I get stressed and dig into the task closest to me. Then the next task, the next one etc.

This is not the best place to be certainly. In some ways it is a decent coping mechanism since at least something gets done. I don’t shut down after all. I just don’t get the most important things done. A perfect example I spent two and a half hours driving around Memphis one evening looking for a Toys R Us to get a training aid. After a while the goal of finding the store became almost as important as completing the task of finding the training aid. Total waste of time! Yes it was but at least the training exercise was a smash success as a result.

So we can go two ways with this post: 1. Awareness, 2. Strategy

Awareness:

In order to be successful we need to constantly cultivate a sense of present moment awareness. I like to consider this with two phrases.

a. thinking about our thinking

An aware person will regulate their thoughts and will reflect on what they are thinking about and adjust from time to time. A perfect example of this is when we find ourself in a negative place. Our thoughts are pessimistic and lead to negative judgements of others and negative behaviors. Self awareness demands that we become aware of our negative thoughts and make the decision to change them. i will often challenge others who are traveling down negative street to share 3 things that are positive about whatever they are talking about. This often shakes them out of their negative place long enough to become aware of it.

When I sense someone is stressed I encourage them to take a deep breathe and share with me what is bothering them. I speak with a slow measured and soft tone. I breathe slower myself all in an attempt to help them to calm and gain control over their mental processes. In doing this the person generally will become more aware of where they are at and can with assistance see alternate solutions to what previously seemed an impossible situation.

b. What is my role in this current situation

Often people interact with others and find the situation not to their liking. Their negative judgement then reinforces the interpersonal dynamic making the situation even worse. I like to ask what my role is so that I can change the context and change the interpersonal dynamic. Often in random predictable situations I will act in seemingly bizarre ways. For instance at a restaurant with a group and when asked for a name to wait for a table I will make up a name. It amazes me the effect this has on other people. They cannot understand why I would do such a thing.

Change your perspective, change your thoughts. Change your thoughts change your outcomes.

A recent favorite is to go to Chik Fil A and make it difficult for the staff to use their trademark “my pleasure” response. A silly game yes, changing the context and my awareness in the moment ABSOLUTELY. We must understand how we interact with others to appreciate what is going on around us. After all the world is not some random movie playing out in front of us for our amusement, rather it is much like an Improv where our every action elicits a response from others. To a significant extent our lives are created by our actions. Do you like the plot of your life? No? Change it! Change your behaviors get a different response.

Strategy

Finally the point of the post! Thought I would never get here.

As a small business owner it is crucial that you understand where you want to take your business. It is not enough  to have a vague concept of what your business is about and what you want to achieve. In week 2 I was able to hold onto one core goal, cash flow. How much cash should my new business generate in month 1? What was my plan for month 2, 3 and 4 etc. What about the year. With goals set in this area it became quite simple to begin to set sales appointments to begin to see how my business could generate value in its core focus areas of training and coaching.

Strategy need not be a go to the mountain top and come back with a polished strategy book. No it needs to be something far more elegantly simple and effective. A short list of organizational priorities linked directly to your company’s core competencies. For me with one major contract secured setting a cash flow goal was a logical and effective starting point. Delving deeper into understanding other core strategies to business success would come later. First protect and grow your cash flow.

Not a lot more to say of week 2. In the next post we will look further at strategy, goal setting and asking for the order.

Live on Purpose!

Ron

Certainly there are benefits to being an entrepreneur. Lets face it some of us just are not cut out to work for someone else. I spent over 23 years working as an employee. Yes there are benefits and many perks that make such a lifestyle alluring.

But at what price?

I come from good honest hard working middle class people. When I was growing up there was no other mindset than to be an “employee”. In fact the first career advice I received occurred as an early teenager when I was encouraged to find a J O B. You see generations of ancestors had been “employed” that is all they knew. You cannot get encouragement and wisdom on being an entrepreneur from perennial employee people, frankly they just don’t get it.

Despite my best efforts my early years as an employee were miserable. I did not quite fit in. I had my own ideas and people did not care about them. I found ways to cope and eventually thrive. At times I even found the path to excel but it always seemed short lived. Organizations have their own sense of consciousness and they don’t like people who would rather think and act their own way rather than conform.

Have you ever felt like you were a half step out of cadence and just couldn’t get into line?

I have and as I matured I came to value being unique and different more than trying to fit in. In fact it is this very uniqueness that I came to value most. In my late 30′s I began to seriously explore what this meant to me and came face to face with a concept I now love that of leadership. I discovered that I had no end of passion for leading and for learning how to lead better. In fact the more I discovered this gift, the better I got, the more quickly I was promoted. My last days as an “employee” were in a senior management position of general manager overseeing a facility with 150 employees and a $60M budget. But even this level of responsibility paled against the reflection of uniqueness, independence and personal growth I had come to demand of myself. And yet being the leader gave me the opportunity to be responsible and accountable for things. I really cherished this aspect of leadership.

Funny though that as I learned more and grew as a leader I found that my heart’s desire was to be a number 2 to a great leader for a cause I was sold out for. I had no real desire to be the number 1. No don’t have the ego or the stamina for that. My real desire is to make a great leader even greater, help them see beyond their own abilities. The problem is I never found that person, that one leader I wanted to follow. So I always seem to end up in the number 1 chair. I believe this is an exact match with why I now am so comfortable with the concept of being an entrepreneur. Since there is no one I currently want to follow, and I am very comfortable leading myself. Ultimately the decision to become an entrepreneur running my own business is about freedom, independence and leadership. There is no one to tell me when to arrive, when to attend, what to wear, what to think, what to say. I get to make all those choices. Some days I make excellent choices, others I blow it. Regardless I look in the mirror and remember something written by one of America’s founding fathers a few centuries ago

Entrepreneur’s Credo

I do not choose to be a common man,

It is my right to be uncommon … if I can,

I seek opportunity … not security.

I do not wish to be a kept citizen.

Humbled and dulled by having the

State look after me.

I want to take the calculated risk;

To dream and to build.

To fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole;

I prefer the challenges of life

To the guaranteed existence;

The thrill of fulfillment

To the stale calm of Utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence

Nor my dignity for a handout

I will never cower before any master

Nor bend to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect.

Proud and unafraid;

To think and act for myself,

To enjoy the benefit of my creations

And to face the world boldly and say:

This, with God’s help, I have done

All this is what it means

To be an Entrepreneur.

With that Week 1 ends on a dignified note. Next up the travels and travails of week 2

Ron

Posted via email from develop a leader