In 1991 I joined a coaching program called The Strategic Coach which was run by Dan Sullivan out of Toronto.  The program has since gone international and has thousands of participants involved globally.  Put very simply, it is intended for individuals who are interested in growing both personally and professionally.  The goal is for participants to have a great personal life with lots of time off,   as well as a great business that generates a lifestyle for them that allows them to live a preferred life.

Most people think that in order to be successful in business, you have to give away all of your time, or to have time off you have to give away money.  This program helped me build a good business and have a great personal life.  The program offers tools that I can use to enable me to have both personal and professional growth.

If you are a business owner, at some point you will likely develop the feeling of complexity.  What this means is you simply have run out of time and you can’t get any more results.  In fact running out of time means that you have already potentially cut into a lot of your own personal time as well.  The program that I got involved with is not the same program that I’m in today but has many similar characteristics.

In order to achieve personal and professional growth, you need to have a good team around you.  You must identify what your unique abilities are and try to operate in that area.  By doing this, you will generally work in areas of your business that give you energy and are usually associated with the highest economic bang for the buck.  This means you have to delegate.  In order to delegate, it’s critical that you empower people by ensuring they know what they are doing and have the necessary tools and resources.  You will also be building empowerment so that bigger results can be made, and making an investment back into your business.  Many times when business owners are adding employees they look at it as a cost.  It is actually an investment and, if done properly, will yield results that are greater than what you invested.

This is just scratching the surface on coaching and what it’s done for me. If you ask me who needs coaching in business, I would say that everyone needs coaching.  But it’s important also that you hit that scene of complexity, you still want to grow, and you’re willing to spend the time and money to do so.  If each of those criteria is met, business coaching is something I strongly recommend you pursue.

 

Clifford A. Wiegers, CFP, TEP, CH.F.C., CLU, B.Comm.

Insurance Representative, Wiegers Financial and Insurance Planning Services Ltd.

Financial Planner, Manulife Securities Investment Services Inc.