JUST PUT IN THE TIME

 

   Good advice from Mark Cuban...

     “Who lives their lives worried about what someone else thinks?” Cuban once told sports scribes. “Before you guys were writing about me in the sports page, people were calling me crazy in the computer industry. People were calling me crazy in the systems- integration industry. People said I was lucky. .?.?. The more people think I’m crazy and out of my mind, typically, the better I do.”

     “Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didn’t want it. I remember going into customers or talking to people in the industry and tossing out tidbits about software or hardware. Features that worked, bugs in the software. All things I had read. I expected the ongoing response of “Oh yeah, I read that too in such-and-such.” That’s not what happened. They hadn’t read it then, and they haven’t started reading yet. Most people won’t put in the time to get a knowledge advantage. Sure, there were folks that worked hard at picking up every bit of information that they could, but we were few and far between. To this day, I feel like if I put in enough time consuming all the information available, particularly with the Internet making it so readily available, I can get an advantage in any technology business. Of course my wife hates that I read more than 3 hours almost every day, but it gives me a level of comfort and confidence in my businesses. At MicroSolutions it gave me a huge advantage. A guy with little computer background could compete with far more experienced guys just because I put in the time to learn all I could.”

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

     RON WILDER at the COACHING SCHOOL

 

     Supercoach Ron Wilder is on the faculty at the prosperity school this year  (www.coachingprosperityschool.com), and you'll be treated to refreshing doses of his genius throughout the two-day live events.

     Ron's a very successful business coach who also specializes in coaching coaches.  When it comes to teaching you how to communicate with a prospective client, how to construct effective dialogues and how to obtain clients quickly and effectively, Ron has no peer. You will know immediately that you are in the presence of the best of the best. I am absolutely thrilled to have him with me as a co-facilitator and advisor to coaches in this school.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

     I BREAK BOTTLES

 

 

   My intention when I write books or coach people is to break bottles. Now, what do I mean by that?  

     Alan Watts told a wonderful story once about how he and his daughter (a little girl five years old) went to see his Zen master.  They sat at the feet of the Zen master and talked.  Finally the Zen Master decided he would give Alan Watts a koan to solve.  Koans were unsolvable stories and puzzles that the Zen masters gave their students; and the students would go away and continuously try to find the answers and in their frustrated efforts they would either achieve enlightenment or not.

    So the Zen master said to Alan (with his little daughter listening in) here is the puzzle:  You have a bottle and inside the bottle there is a goose trapped in the bottle.  There is no way for the goose to get out of the bottle through the bottleneck- it's too small.  To save the life of the goose, you have to get the goose out of the bottle, but the rule is you cannot break the bottle.  How do you get the goose out of the bottle, without breaking the bottle?

     Alan Watts scratched his head and thought and thought and the little girl looked at the master and said, "I know"  The master said, "OK, how?"  And the little girl said "You break the bottle."  The Zen master smiled.  He looked at Alan Watts and he said, "Children get it every time."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

     THE UNSUCCESSFUL SUCCESS COACH

 

 

     A FAIRY TALE:

     Fairy Tale - Once upon a time there was an unsuccessful success coach.

    And the unsuccessful success coach would go around trying to get clients and failing to get clients. When he tried to get clients,  he would promise these people that he would try to make them successful.

    Everywhere the unsuccessful success coach went he would say, "Tell me your dreams, and I will help you be successful at living your dream.  I'm a success coach."

     The problem was the unsuccessful success coach himself was unsuccessful. 

     He was unable to get enough clients to feed his family and to keep things going and pay the bills. His wife was upset as every day he came home empty-handed. "I need a new granite counter top!" she shouted. "And the children need iPads!"

    Even though he was telling people on his website, and in his conversations, and in his e-mails, and in the spam and in the shout-outs that he was a "success coach" he himself was unsuccessful.

     One day the unsuccessful success coach was in an airport coming home from an unsuccessful trip during which he attempted unsuccessfully to get a new client. As he sat in the airport, he started to overhear a conversation.  Sitting behind him waiting for the very same plane were two coaches, Steve Chandler and Ron Wilder.   Steve and Ron were talking about some of the activities were they were going to put the coaches through in their upcoming Coaching Prosperity School.  The school had been very successful at teaching coaches to be successful.

    As the unsuccessful success coach continued to overhear the conversation, he began to realized that these two people , Steve Chandler and Ron Wilder, were dedicated to helping coaches get clients----the very thing that the unsuccessful success coach needed to learn and was unable to do!

    Finally, he spoke up.  "I couldn't help overhearing you" he said.  "I'm a coach myself. The problem is I have a hard time getting clients. I guess I just don't know how to do it."

     Steve Chandler looked at him and said "What kind of a coach are you?" and he said "I'm a success coach" and Steve Chandler said, "A success coach!  So what do you coach people to do?" 

    And he said, "Well, I just coach people to become successful.  I help them reach their dreams, I establish projects for them, I hold them accountable, I give them action plans."

     Ron looked at him and said, "But you, yourself, are not successful."

     And the unsuccessful success coach hung his head and said, "I know.  That's kind of a contradiction, isn't it?  Its kind of an embarrassment for me to pull up to a prospect's house in my old car or to have the prospect find out that I am always available, that I really don't have clients."

    "Well, why not take your methods," said Steve Chandler, "and apply them to yourself?  If you really can make people successful, what are you doing going out into the world  making other people successful without making yourself successful first?"

    "Well, I thought it was all about giving and healing and making a difference in the world," said the unsuccessful success coach.  "I just wanted to help people and make a difference.  I am very altruistic-I'm even a little bit like Gandhi and Mother Theresa."

     "Well, how is that working for you?"

     "Well, it's not working.  That's just the point.  I am not getting clients."

     "OK, then here's what we recommend," said Steve Chandler.  "Please enroll in our school.  Our school lasts for a year."

     Immediately the unsuccessful success coach held his hand up.  Steve stopped speaking. The unsuccessful success coach said, "No, no, wait a minute.  I've done that before.  I have been to a number of schools.  I've been certified as a coach.  I've been to coaching institutes.  I'm a certified coach. I know how to coach already."  

     Ron said, "We don't doubt that.  That's not what our school is for.  Our school does not teach people how to coach.  Our school teaches people how to get clients.  Period-----that's it.  The whole school is about that.  It's like the Harvard Business School.  It is not like a liberal arts psychology/philosophy class.  It is hands on business.  Actually, it's even more like a trade school where you learn a trade.  The trade is, in your case, building a successful coaching practice.  What you have forgotten to do is to put the oxygen mask on yourself first."

     "Oxygen mask?"

     "There is a reason why the stewardess says, 'Please put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help others in your row.'  Otherwise people to try to save others first.  If they do that, without any oxygen for themselves everyone will die.  They can't help others first. That doesn't work. You might have noticed that.  You cannot help a client you don't have. If you don't have clients, you're not helping anybody.  You are not Mother Theresa and you are not Gandhi.  You are an unsuccessful success coach."

     The unsuccessful success coach was silent, but he nodded his head. He agreed.

     Steve said, "Listen.  Come to our school.  Learn to get clients.  It's that simple."

     The unsuccessful success coach nodded and said, "OK, I will do that." 

     Steve then produced from his belt a tiny device he carried everywhere that allows people to swipe their credit card. He said, "Pull out your card and swipe here so you can be registered in the school and we don't have a lot of nonsense between now and then. We don't have a lot of second thoughts and all the stuff that has you in the position you are right now."

    The unsuccessful success coach looked at the device and he said, "What's that?"  You actually wear that on your belt?  I thought that was your cell phone."

    "No, I carry this everywhere" said Steve. "I don't give free advice.  I am a coach, that is my profession.  I let people swipe their cards before I speak to them." 

    Ron began laughing.  Ron looked at the unsuccessful success coach.  He said, "You know, you've got to get used to Steve.  He's a bit of an entertainer.  He's a provocateur----he does things to wake people up.  He has this device that he can carry on his belt next to his cell phone in case he runs into someone like you.  He runs into people like you all the time.  Do you have your credit card with you?"

    "Yes," said the unsuccessful success coach.  "I do have my card".  Here. 

     It was swiped.

     The unsuccessful success coach was now a student in the year-long Coaching Prosperity School.  He was on his way to becoming a successful success coach.

     The End

     www.coachingprosperityschool.com

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

     OK.  Now let's get real.  No fairy tale.  It's a real problem for a coach to not be successful, prosperous, thriving.  It's a tough place to come from as a coach.  

     To not know how to make yourself successful.  To not know how to get clients. To go out there and promise clients you'll help them be successful if you, yourself, are not.  

     It is the backwards/wrong way to handle this. The most needed school in the whole world has been a school that did not teach coaches to coach.  The most needed and appreciated and welcome school has been the school that gets coaches clients and notice the phrasing there.  Not the school that teaches you HOW TO to get clients, because that's just more information about how to do something. If you come to the school and come away only with information about how to do something, the school failed you.  

     The intention of the school---the commitment of the school-- -is not to just teach you information about HOW TO get clients.  The intention of the school is to actually get you clients.  It is not information.  It is transformation.  

     It is about changing who you are so you have skills and internal tools---dialogue you can use and it will acquire clients for you simply as a form of self-expression. It's where you are coming from.  It's who you are instead of information you try to remember.  That's the point of the school.  It's experiential, it's transformational, it's provocative.  

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