Is complaining holding you back from your full potential? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller discuss the surprisingly simple choice between complaining and creating when facing obstacles. Discover how shifting to a creative mindset, embracing courage, and taking full responsibility can unlock new capabilities and exponential growth.

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

• How complaining allows you to avoid responsibility by justifying why you can't move forward.
• The Strategic Coach® thinking tool for transforming obstacles into capability and confidence.
• Why you need commitment and courage before you can gain capability and confidence.
• The kinds of people that give creativity a bad name.

Show Notes:

An obstacle feels like something is blocking your progress.

There are only two ways of dealing with obstacles: creating or complaining.

When you’re in creativity mode, you’re fully engaged with transforming or bypassing the obstacle.

To deal with an obstacle, you have to create something new.

Taking 100% responsibility is essential for creative problem-solving.

Complaining involves blaming external circumstances or people.

Committing fully to complaining offers a sense of freedom because you’ve absolved yourself of any responsibility for improving your situation.

Few people are entirely creative or entirely complainers. Most are a mix of both.

Creativity requires courage; complaining does not.

Creators are more likely to be honest with themselves.

You attract what you are: complainers attract complainers, and creators attract creators.

Resources:

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

Organizations have changed a lot over the past 50 years, and it’s vital for entrepreneurs to be aware of these changes if they want to achieve great business success. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, who has been coaching entrepreneurs for 50 years, talks to fellow business coach Shannon Waller all about the changes in companies that have taken place over the past half-century and the very different position that entrepreneurs are in today.

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

• What gave Dan confidence to become a business coach.
• How Dan’s desire to coach got married to entrepreneurism.
• How Strategic Coach® helps entrepreneurs thrive in the current economy.
• The way to give your team members roles, not just jobs.

Show Notes:

The invention of the microchip allowed entrepreneurs to have a lot of power and capability they’d never had before.

The introduction of the microchip meant large corporations would start to fracture and wouldn’t be as effective or useful.

It might take three months to get a decision from large organizations, but entrepreneurs can decide to hire you, and write you a check, in the moment.

About every 15 years, the number of employees required in an organization is about half of what it was 15 years previously.

Now that small companies with microchip power can be powerful economic forces, government has adjusted to make the process of incorporation faster and easier.

We’re partway through a 50-year period in which we’re shifting from large, pyramid-shaped organizations to network-based organizations.

Artificial intelligence can do work that used to require many people to do.

A lot more people can own companies and have leadership positions now than they used to.

Canada, especially Ontario, is one of the easier places in the world to incorporate.

Being a bureaucrat in a large pyramidal organization used to be the safest job in the economy, but is now among the riskiest.

Being an entrepreneur has become the safest role.

Resources:

The Great Crossover by Dan Sullivan

Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage

Unique Ability®

Do you believe in luck, or do you make your own success? In this episode, Dan Sullivan explores the concept of luck in entrepreneurship. Drawing from 50 years of coaching experience, he reveals how successful entrepreneurs create their own paths, often starting young by seeking opportunities to grow their wealth. Discover how self-made success intertwines with luck in the entrepreneurial journey.

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

• The top ways Dan has been lucky.
• Why it’s more difficult for someone born into wealth to become an entrepreneur.
• The new Strategic Coach® thinking tool that will help you recognize and increase your luck.
• Why being an entrepreneur requires a lot of courage.
• How Strategic Coach is run like a live theater company.

Show Notes:

50% of your success comes from luck, and 50% of it comes from the ability to take advantage of the luck you've had.

An entrepreneur’s success is an act of self-creation.

Entrepreneurs create their own income streams and their own capabilities.

Entrepreneurs understand intuitively that freedom requires money.

It’s difficult to separate luck from skill.

The U.S. is an entrepreneurial country created by entrepreneurs.

Even the challenges you’ve faced have shaped who you are today.

Recognizing the luck you’ve had keeps you centered and grounded.

Whether your capability drives your luck or vice versa depends on your perspective.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage