Several years back I attended the annual awards dinner hosted by The Equality Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC.  I was nominated for the award entitled “Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year”.

My issue is:  I am not sure then, or now, that I am an entrepreneur . . . all of the time.  The word seems overused.  In fact, my clients abuse it too, calling themselves “entrepreneurs” when most are not.

And I am here to say that an entrepreneur is not necessarily a bad thing not to be.  Many of us fail to consider the costs of prolonged exposure to the entrepreneurial lifestyle.  The dedication and drive it requires makes the dream of a balanced life illusory.

But there is hope when you think about your business differently.

When you have an idea for making money this idea is usually formulated utilizing two mindsets:  the entrepreneurial mindset or business owner mindset.  The person who can successfully employ and tap into both is more likely to live a life of business success and personal well-being.

Let’s explore the differences between the two mindsets by focusing on our approach, our expectations, and our vision.

The Approach and Expectations

Entrepreneurs typically have an assertive and impatient ethic.  They are extreme risk takers and rarely avoid opportunities to expand on their already grand ideas.

When I started a small hotel in Europe in 2006 it was to ensure the financial security of myself and my partner at the time.  This is an example of the business owner mindset.  Nothing too lofty, just a common sense way to thrive in a foreign country.

However, after it opened, and became surprisingly successful within three short months, I began to imagine creating a brand of boutique inns throughout the continent.  I started to talk to potential investors and planned for a massive expansion within two to three years.  I assumed that if one was great, five would be even better.

This entrepreneurial drive led me to spend countless hours working and planning.  And I paid a very heavy personal cost.

I am not saying we should not try to take a small idea and “make it bigger”.  Moreover, not all small business owners, who accept the business owner mindset, are living balanced lives.  Just be aware that bigger may not always be better for you or your loved ones.

The Vision

An entrepreneur is restless because the vision is grand, bold, and life consuming.   Most importantly, this mindset is all about the idea, rarely is the passion sustained during the execution of the idea.

When I first joined Velocity (my previous coaching company) for example, I wanted to create a company that sponsored well-being retreats around the world.  It was a huge vision, and very entrepreneurial.

After beta testing a few of these I soon realized I could not make the numbers add up.  I became disillusioned and frustrated.

It was then that I decided to focus on 1 to 1 coaching.  My new vision fell into the business owner mindset.  I was all about slowly building my client-base and networking to meet the kinds of people who could help me, and I them.

Now I am practicing living within both mindsets.  I love coaching my clients but I am in the planning stages of creating on-line content and perhaps a small networking organization, one that allows professionals the chance to grow both professionally and personally . . . these two ideas are clearly entrepreneurial.  Because I have been battle tested, I am rightly fearful that the entrepreneurial bug will create imbalances in my personal life once again.

Fear is an asset though when we learn to see it as just another ingredient in formulating our strategy.

Trust me, I have never met an entrepreneur who lives a “balanced” life.  And if they seem like they are balanced, well that’s just means they are in between big ideas.

So become aware of why you are doing what you are doing and accept that both mindsets have advantages and disadvantages.  Cycling between the entrepreneurial and business owner mindsets will create the greatest likelihood that you will avoid a life marred by grand peaks and deep valleys.

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

For most of us networking sucks because we suck at it.

Why?

Because we do not have a strategy for making each event we attend fun and hopefully successful.  Here are three strategic tips.

Know You

First, stop network bashing.  Most people, from my own experience networking and coaching, find the process quite grueling.  The few remaining diehards are not particularly good at it or pretend to like it so as not to seem “un-business-like”.

Hating it, though, comes at a great cost.  It prevents us from understanding ourselves and growing our businesses.  Usually we hate what we perceive we are not good at.  It’s a vicious circle.

Second, avoid the vicious circle by identifying your best time of the day.  I am a morning person so I do the vast majority of my networking in the morning.  When I first started coaching I attended evening events and thought I would just die.  Then shortly after this grueling nocturnal experiment, I founded a business-networking group that meets once a week on Wednesday mornings at 7:30am.  Many people would be horrified to meet that early.  Not me and not the vast majority of my colleagues in the group.

Attend business breakfasts or lunchtime lectures if you are an early bird.  In the past three years I have built my business avoiding ad hoc evening events as much as possible.

Third, and most importantly, identify your connection preference.  If you prefer to keep it purely professional and brief when you interact with people then it is best for you to hyper-mingle at events, meeting as many people as you can.  I call these people networking butterflies as they fly from person to person, obtaining as many business cards as possible.

For many of us though, we are networking hummingbirds.  And like the hummingbird we are more focused.  We spend a greater amount of time with fewer people and we are more comfortable (or just crave) talking about our lives and our businesses and hearing about the lives and businesses of a colleague.

Traditionally the hummingbirds receive a bad rap.  When you are in a room they are usually easy to spot.  They seem vulnerable.  Their vulnerability, however, is a strength and not a weakness if used properly.  Instead of appearing vulnerable, be open to owning your vulnerability by expressing it (see below).  This is the key to meaningful connections.

The butterfly and hummingbird approach each has its advantages and disadvantages.  The networking butterfly will meet more people.  So by the sheer grace of the odds they may make a connection or two that is important to them and/or their business.  However, butterflies expend a ton of energy and deeper connections are often sacrificed, connections that may lead to more efficient and reliable business and personal growth.

Conversely, networking hummingbirds may miss the opportunity to meet that special someone else who would make an excellent connection because they focus on one or two people at each event.

Keep in mind that most of us have both hummingbird and butterfly networking instincts.  It’s a scale with each species at one end of it.  You just need to know where you lean.  For example, I can butterfly with the best of them, but I lean hummingbird and so I network using that approach more often.

Know Them

When you network find your kind.  Hetero-networking across species is not entirely effective.

Hummingbirds relate best to other hummingbirds and butterflies to other butterflies.  If you want to be successful and efficient, embrace the homo-networking world!

Seriously, it is important to spend time with people who share your networking values.  For example, my Wednesday morning networking group has over 30 members.  Between meetings, members are encouraged to meet 1 to 1 to create deeper ties.  I have found that the butterflies in the group find these meetings incredibly uncomfortable and unproductive.  Perhaps that’s because I am trying to go deep and personal and that’s what they find so icky and disconcerting.

Finally, you must learn to ask interesting questions from a posture of curiosity and interest to discern the species of your connection.

Here are just three that I think are amazing to pick out the hummingbirds . . .

Q: So tell me, what brought you to [the city you are in] in the first place?

– A chance to talk about the past with myriad opportunities to see if this person likes to keep it surfacey or goes deep.

Q: I have to admit networking makes me a little nervous, how has it helped your business?

– A chance to learn about what the person does without asking, “So what do you do?”

Q: It’s funny what we will all do to grow our businesses, tell me what do you love most about what you do for a living?

– When people talk about what they love they are more likely to open up and make a connection.

If the person is more “hummingbird” they will respond positively to these questions and they will ask you follow-up questions.

Know Their Network

Finally, and this is probably the most important, you must assess the probability that other people listen to and respect the person you are chatting up regardless of their networking species.  For example, I spend my time mingling with people who lean hummingbird and I think others find real, reliable, and reputable.

The best connection is not the person who hires you but the person who recommends you to many other people and they all hire you.

In three steps you will become a more successful business networker and have more fun doing it.  First, know your species.  Where do you lean?  More hummingbird or more butterfly?  Second, know the species of the people around you and realize that you will be more successful relating to your own species.  Finally, regardless of the kind of networker you chat up, think about how real, reliable, and reputable others find them.  If they score highly on each, they may become an amazing source of business for you without ever spending a dime of their own money on you.

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

Abstract:

The answer to the question is “yes”.  We learn about ourselves and our community from both and from questioning why we do both.

[about 7 minutes]

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

Many clients ask me to help them make “better decisions.”  Of course for many of us the path to making better decisions is often bumpy and winding.  However, if you start by following these three steps you will quickly see how your life will change for the better.

Step 1:  How are you making decisions now?

Here are the popular answers I hear:

1. “Based on how I handled a similar situation in the past.”

2. “Based on what is best for my family/partner/other people.”

3. Most popular: “I don’t know.”

Here are the two answers we rarely suggest but are probably in play more than we would like to acknowledge:

1. Based on fear.

2. Based on anger/sadness.

None of the above will help you consistently flourish.  And the most popular truthful answers, fear, anger/sadness, and “I don’t know” are no way to live a life.

Step 2: What are values and why do they matter?

Live your life by what you value.  Seems simple enough.  The problem is there are numerous definitions of a value.  Try this simple value filter: If the word makes your heart sing it is probably a value.  My clients go through an intensive and comprehensive values assessment to determine the words that make their heart sing.  It only takes about an hour, and the results are compelling.

Once you begin to experiment with making decisions based on what you value you suddenly reduce unnecessary drama in your life, you stop worrying every time you are asked to choose, and you begin to navigate the forks in the road to success with speed and confidence.

Step 3: The words are not enough

My values are community, opportunity, commitment, and love.  These are wonderful words, for me.  However, when I am faced with a decision, how can these words help me to make a good one?  Well they can, most of the time.  For example, if I have a choice between trying something new in my business and relying on the tried and true, I am more likely to experiment because it speaks to my value of opportunity.  I love to seize an opportunity.

But what happens when I have to choose between my commitment to my clients and my commitment to my friends?  Commitment is a value and this choice seems to produce conflicting value allegiances.  I am clearly committed to both my friends and clients, and both are part of my community (another value), and frankly I love them too (yet another value).

So Step 3 is about creating your own valued purpose statement.  This statement fleshes out what you mean by your words and reduces values conflicts.  A valued purpose embodies your values, although the statement may not contain any of the words.

My valued purpose statement is:  Bold and consistent experimentation in the spirit of well-being (I define well-being using an acronym called PERMA, a construct used in positive psychology, where each letter stands for an element of emotional health).

Back to my choice between clients and friends . . .

The simple answer is it depends . . . There is never a 100 percent clear choice if you are conflicted.  You would not be conflicted otherwise.  So I ask myself, “As of right now, what decision would be more likely to lead me down a path of bold and consistent experimentation in the spirit of PERMA?”

Then I make the decision and move on.  It’s not a perfect system for we are not computers.  Notice though how fear, anger, and “I don’t know” are stricken from the process.  This realization is revolutionary for most people.

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

Abstract:

At what point are you truly over an ex?  When you can pass the “knock on the door test” . . .

[about 10 minutes]

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

Abstract:

Whatever you decide you want to achieve, stay open to making adjustments at the beginning, the middle, and at the end of your goal process.  Time is finite, instead of wasting it, adjust to it!

[about 10 minutes]

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

Recently I completed a blog series on the ten reasons why coaches fail at a full-time career.  I appreciate the emails from readers who have been affected by my point of view.

One of those emails asked, “Why did you become a coach in the first place?”

If you read my blogs consistently (and thanks for doing that), you will find answers like, “I love to help people reach their goals,” and “I love to do well by doing good,” etc.

And then I thought that I have never really answered this question in a way that explains my passion for coaching and how I believe it is the best modality for changing lives and creating flourishing businesses.

Most importantly, I have never recounted my personal coaching journey.

My Coaching Story

Several years ago I experienced a great deal of pain after a breakup I frankly did not see coming.  I experienced lows I never thought possible.  It eclipsed the pain I felt when my parents divorced, when my charismatic and loving mom passed away in my early 20s, and when my very dear grandmother died a few years after that.

I did not know what to do or where to turn.  To make matters much worse I was living a frenetic life at the time, stuck on the treadmill of achievement without any focus on my overall health and well-being.  I lived to work and for my partner and most aspects of the work I was doing were not particularly rewarding.

And so when my post-breakup sadness became overwhelming I went to see a therapist.  I had no idea finding a good therapist was as hard as finding a soul mate!  Her “this is the likely disorder you suffer from” vantage point turned my stomach and whisked me farther down my sad spiral.

Next I tried group therapy.  I figured I had nothing to lose.  I thought perhaps I was “broken” and being with other “broken” people might help me find some answers.

In the room were twelve people who used the sessions to complain about every problem that brought them to the brink of disaster.  Now I get why people vent.  However, research shows that venting for the sake of venting is unhelpful.  We must seek to reappraise the past experience and our present lives in an effort to learn and grow from it.

And our group therapy facilitator did not hold people accountable for their own well-being.  In short, no one was taking responsibility for anything.  I got up, and asked myself, “When is it the right time to stop blaming others for our pain?”

Right now.

Soon after the pain lifted (with the help of a wonderful therapist) I began my journey of emotional and physical health and healing.

My future seemed nebulous and a bit scary at first.  But I knew my new life would involve both consistent responsibility and consistent experimentation and I wanted to share that ethic with others.

And when I had lunch one day with a former student of mine (way back when, I taught the social sciences), she reminded me how my classes were much more concerned with the personal and professional development of my students than in the nitty gritty details of the subject matter.

She asked me if I ever considered coaching?  Coaching?  You mean like football? I really had no idea such a field existed.

So I learned everything I could about life and business coaching, got certified and started seeing clients immediately.  Let me be clear, it was not love at first sight, but I soon realized I was born to coach . . . it just took me forty years to realize it.

And the best part?  The unintended consequence of my heartache and employment crisis was this introduction to my life’s work.  Don’t you just love positive unintended consequences?

I am a coach because I believe in helping clients see what is right in their lives.  I am a coach because I love to help clients formulate a roadmap for their success that ensures goals are met while emotional and physical well-being are both enhanced.  I am a coach to encourage clients to take responsibility for their own lives.  And finally, I am a coach who motivates clients to live a life of healthy experimentation.

It’s my passion and thanks to my amazing clients I get to make a living doing what I love.  Thanks!

Interested in coaching?  Check out this blog series to determine if coaching is right for you . . .

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You are Not Depressed, Too Busy, or Into Instant Gratification

Coaching is Right for You If . . . Life is Not What You Imagined

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You Want to Start Something

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You Want to End Something

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You are in the Thick of It

Coaching is Right for You If . . . Goals Matter

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You Want to Practice Happiness

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You Want Health

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You Want to Play to Your Strengths

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You are Making Stupid Decisions Part I

Coaching is Right for You If . . . You are Making Stupid Decisions Part II

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

Abstract:

An audio blogpost about feelings and how sometimes not feeling like yourself is both explainable and unexplainable.  Feelings pass, “good” ones and “bad” ones . . . just don’t let the frustrating ones stop you from seeking meaning in your life, and in the life of others today . . . and beyond. [about 13 minutes]

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.

This post from 2015 about the Charleston Church racist murders demonstrates how treating life like a science experiment can teach us lessons about some of the most unconscious bigoted behaviors, our own . . . my own.  This current moment in our history is tumultuous, and necessary for all of us.  We must learn and grow . . . finally!

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(audio version available at the end of this post)

Let me share a recent interaction I had to illustrate the difference between a thought, a belief, and an action predicated on a belief.

It was about four weeks ago and I was walking through a park. Two black teenage boys approached me.  They appeared lost to me.  One asked me where a certain Capitol Hill school was located.  I told him I did not know but that I could look it up on my iPhone.  As I pulled the phone out of my front pocket I thought, “What if this is a scheme to steal my phone?”  In any event I gave them the directions and off they went.  I could have stopped there with my seemingly innocuous thought.  No growth, no learning.

Instead this was my next thought . . .

If they had been white would I have ever suspected a scheme?

Probably not.

Thoughts, Beliefs, and Actions

So why is a business and life coach writing about his relationship with race?

Because our thoughts have enormous power if we afford them that power . . . all thoughts. And yet thoughts have no hold over us if we disregard or challenge them in our effort to evolve and grow.  As a fascinating book by a duo of psychologists argues, you and your thoughts are not one in the same.

But when we choose to incorporate a series of seemingly connected thoughts about a particular topic/subject with the “lessons” shared with us by family, friends, mentors, books (the internet), etc., on that topic/subject, then poof . . .  we usually end up with a belief.  And beliefs often spur action.

Undoubtedly our beliefs and actions go a long way in defining who we are.

Beliefs can be as helpful as “I treat all people equally and interact with them from a posture of curiosity and non-judgment,” as sensible as “I better seek shelter when there is lightening nearby,” or as harmful as “the darker a person’s skin the more suspicious I must be because they are out to get me (or my family, or my country, or my ‘way of life’).”

And in fact the vast majority of time our beliefs are somewhat coherent, congruent, scientific, and virtuous because they are based upon the empirical evidence of our everyday lives.  For example, most people are helpful is a belief I subscribe to since I have found in my life, after living in five countries and nine cities, that when I need help, people are usually there for me if I ask for it.

What am I arguing here?

We can have beliefs that range from the virtuous to the vicious.

The good news is we can create a pious bias toward the virtuous if we are open to self-examination to discern why our thoughts emerge the way in which they do, no matter how uncomfortable our findings are to us or to our community.

My suspicious thoughts related to the two teenagers described above I find illogical and anti-empirical.  No one of any race has ever stolen my phone, and even if they had they would not represent a random sample of their race, age cohort, or gender.

Accordingly my mistrustful thought in the park does not contribute to my beliefs about race nor does it control my actions, and therefore it did not prevent me from acting virtuously this time, thank goodness.

Virtue requires consistent vigilance however and I have come up short many times in my life . . . many.

When I was a teenager, for instance, my stepmother shared a story of how her grandfather was killed protecting his convenience store from black burglars. “That is why you should never trust a ni**er,” she exclaimed. And if those robbers had been white, should I never trust a white man?

God how I wish I responded that way. I did not, choosing cowardice instead.

The Charleston Church Murders

Can this thought-belief-action dynamic help us process (not justify) the horrific actions of Dylann Roof, the murderer of nine innocent churchgoers in Charleston? Now, he may in fact be “nuts”.  But I caution using words like “nuts” or “crazy” because it may get him and his influencers off the hook.

Roof holds a vicious belief about race, one that requires a series of foundational thoughts. For instance . . .

1) Black people are different (who and/or what influenced him to have that thought?).

2) That difference is dangerous to me and my community (who and/or what influenced him to have that thought?).

3) So I must act to stop them (who and/or what influenced him to have that thought?).

4) The only way I can do that is to kill them (who and/or what influenced him to have that thought?).

In the weeks and months ahead the “who and/or what” is worth exploring even if we uncover troubling truths.

We all have racial thoughts (making assumptions entirely based on the color of someone’s skin).  The good news is the overwhelming majority is not racist, i.e. we never use them to formulate vicious beliefs that may contribute to violent actions or the condoning of such actions.

Most of us probably disregard those thoughts.

Some of us even take the next helpful step, one that requires time carefully spent assessing where these thoughts come from and why they appear in the first place: perhaps our families, friends, the internet, our churches, our clubs, etc., are explanatory elements that we can choose to consider and critique.

This effort to bias in favor of virtue is such an inclusive human enterprise.

And racism is the opposite of inclusive . . .  it’s ignorant and unscientific (the two go hand-in-hand). [2020 note: as we have sadly seen, practically hourly, in our presidential discourse since January 20th 2017 from noon onwards . . . oh how I wish I attended Hogwarts so I could learn a spell to mute a vile man.]

It is Black and White

Racism is a heinous vice, forged in the thoughts, beliefs, and actions that come from many places and people.  And do not think for a moment that any one of us is incapable of thoughts that have the potential to lead to vicious beliefs.  To paraphrase a famous scholar, evil is banal.

Roof’s actions must remind us that we are all capable of damaging vice to varying degrees if  1) we refuse to take the time to question and challenge the vicious thoughts that enter our minds each and every day and when 2) we refuse to take the time and energy to challenge the vicious beliefs and actions of other people.

I hope, in truth, we have evolved as a species more than it seems lately in the USA (a species ironically that originated in Africa).  I mean, come on, I suspect our black ancestors are not particularly proud of us right now.

My covid vaccine experience.

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Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

In early April 2021 I drove 2.5 hours to a remote county somewhere in Maryland I had never heard of to receive my first covid vaccination.  I waited about two hours in several lines, carefully organized by national guard troops and nurses and supervisors.  It was an immense operation, and although all 45 individual “shot in the arm” stations were not utilized that day, I could not believe how professional and patient everyone was behaving.

Perhaps after four years of Pleistocene Epoch politics I had lost some hope that we could ever accomplish much as a nation again.

As I sat waiting for my 15 minutes to expire (for those unvaccinated, they ask you to wait just in case you have a reaction to the vaccine), I gave myself permission to be happy, to breathe a sigh of relief.  Pleased that in three weeks time I would return to this same place for my second dose of this wonderful new technology that will save millions now and perhaps billions later. (For those who read books, check out Walter Isaacson’s The Code Breaker to learn more about the science.)

And when I returned . . . omg, America can innovate!

Instead of waiting two hours, it took 5 minutes.  I am not kidding, five minutes from the time I parked to the time the nurse gave me my second dose.  FIVE MINUTES!

I am not some rah rah rah, “America is number 1 kinda guy”.  I certainly grew up that way, part of an immigrant family proud to call America home, people who felt and feel American and Italian . . . both, and with not a hint of a conflict of interest, thank you very much.

I left my country at the age of 20 and spent ten of the next twenty years living in a variety of other nations.  I loved all of them.  They each had a unique culture to learn from and I enjoyed comparing and contrasting their “ways” with ours.  The one common feature I missed in all those places . . . our love of making something better, of not accepting that just because it was always done one way, it must always remain that way.  As a totally gay and out man, I am living proof that America gets better in fits and starts.  Too late for many, yes I know, I am one of the lucky ones.

But I digress . . .

After the nurse carefully places the bandaid on my shoulder (for the unvaccinated and wary, I HATE needles, I grew up with a crunchy 1970s mom who never took me to doctors, but this one must be super thin cause it felt no worse than the mildest of pinches), I began to walk to the 15-minute waiting area.  Then . . . tears flowed.  Like a baby, and I have been told I cried a Pacific Ocean worth of tears in my first 3 years on Earth!

And this is what I texted a good friend when she asked me to describe what I felt as I released so much emotion . . .

“I wept after my second shot, I wept for all the people who died of AIDS who may have lived if we had put in this effort for HIV, I wept for how amazing tech is at solving serious problems, how government matters, how this past year not only ripped a hole in my country I love so very much but also directly into my family. I cried tears of joy; I felt a sense of freedom to see all my friends and colleagues in DC . . . I wept and wept and wept.  I felt every positive and negative emotion available to me in 50 years in just 15 minutes, what a trip!”

Wars and pandemics change cultures faster than probably any other phenomena.  How has it changed you?  If you say it has not . . . welcome to DENIAL.  What do you plan to do with all the knowledge, all the fear, all the change?  Go back to the way you once lived?  Come on!  Create a better version of yourself, one that focuses on all of your strengths, one that reevaluates your values, and one that makes life worth living from today . . . not tomorrow, not after this summer, and not in 2022 . . . NOW!

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If you have any questions about coaching please feel free to contact me at scott@kineticcoaching.co, and remember I always offer a complimentary 30-45 minute session to prospective clients to determine if we want to work together.