Business Coach : Don’t Let Problems Define You
You know, Gary Keller, the guy who started Keller Williams Realty. It’s a big, billion dollar real estate company. And he says this quote. He says, “Taking ownership of your outcomes by holding no one but yourself responsible for them is the most powerful thing you can do to drive success.” A business coach will help you with taking ownership.
Tim, in your life, can you share with me as a story of how you’ve seen this concept of taking ownership of your life play out in the life of maybe one of your clients that you’ve worked with? Or maybe where you’ve seen this? Because you’ve gone through it. I mean, you’ve dealt with it. Are there other examples of people you can think of who have not been defined by their situations, but actual refined by it?
-Oh yeah. I had a client I was working with, and this is– I started working with them right at the apex of this great recession. It was 2008, 2009. They came on board November, 2008. And they were in the construction business and all their friends and competitors were going down. Not just losing money, they lost their businesses. Probably because they didn’t have help from the best business coach.
And in the middle of that, I’m pouring heart and soul into them, Clay, and nothing’s happening. And I’m realizing that this guy is hearing it and says yes, OK, yeah we’ll do it. But his heart wasn’t in the game. He wasn’t out there to play to win.
Some people just play not to lose. And I’m trying to get this guy– don’t play not to lose, just play to win. And so when he made a shift to say listen, I’m going to win no matter what it takes. I’m going to own this. I’m going to go forward with this. Go forward with a business coach.
That year, instead of losing his business, cause we’re right on the brink of it, he almost doubled his sales. He quadrupled his net profit. He grew from $800,000 to– it’s a small company. I work with a lot bigger companies, but this small company– $800,000 to $1.4 million. Then he jumped to $2.2 million. I mean, now we’re on our way to hitting $5 million with all kinds of profits.
-I’m going to give you a boom. Boom! Awesome! Now, we’re moving on to step two. So if you’re watching this, I mean, I’m telling you, this– step one we got to take ownership. No matter what you’re dealing with, we have to take ownership.
Now we’re moving on assuming that we’re taking ownership. On to step two. Step two is commit to life long learning. Now Tim, Brian Tracy the best-selling author, business consultant, and speaker says, “No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.”
Tim, I’m looking for a little story here. Tim, so many people quit learning after they graduate from college, or high school, or after they’ve experienced some success. They’re like, well I’ve learned enough. I’m pretty much good.
From your experience, share with me a story about how you’ve witnessed somebody who’s been committed to life long learning. How it’s impacted their lives? Or maybe how it’s impacted your life, this concept of life long learning?
-Well we’re talking about building wealth. And so I define wealth, what drives wealth, is learning. And it’s not just learning right then and there, but it’s an ongoing, present progressive, learning, learning, learning. And so I study– I remember studying in college. I studied accounting and finance.
And I found myself in this big, public accounting firm and I felt trapped in here. It’s like, I want to build these businesses. I want to help people. I want to work with people. And I’m doing this ticking and tying and this wonderful– if you’re in that kind of business, it’s great.
-It’s awesome.
-It’s really not great. No, it’s wonderful for those kind of people. But, you know what– I saw myself as being stuck and thinking what am I going to do? And I remember it was in 1984, and I’m thinking where am I going to go in my life?
-Boom! 1984.
-1984 there’s like a book written about that.
-Boom!
-So anyway, I remember saying you know what, I’m going to continue learning. I was studying for my CPA exam, so we got that knocked out. But I remember getting this book by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman, In Search of Excellence. And it was the management gurus, they wrote it a couple years earlier. And I started reading this and it just opened up this world of management, and building businesses, and motivating people and being a business coach.
And it just lit me up and I just started going every week, every month, I’d go into a new book, just diving into it. And it just expanded. I was ready for the opportunity. When it came by, I was ready for the opportunity to jump on it to help grow this business.