Helping UAE entrepreneurs maintain work life balance.
Dan Sullivan has a vision for entrepreneurs: “The freedoms to innovate, contribute, and profit without limits, and do so whilst enjoying an extraordinary life.” This freedom is the main reason people become entrepreneurs, yet very few end up having that experience because of hectic schedules and lack of planning.
A Canadian businessman himself, Sullivan had observed that of the five percent of the population who decide to become entrepreneurs, 95 percent get stuck at a certain level of achievement-what he calls “hitting a ceiling of complexity”-and can’t transcend it. The echelon of entrepreneurs above that level is doing something entirely different, and he’s proven that others can learn to do it too.
“If complexity is the problem,” he says, “then the solution has to be simplicity.”
This is why Sullivan created the Strategic Coach Program in Canada- to give the world’s most ambitious, talented, and successful entrepreneurs a systematic way to grow their companies, whilst freeing them personally to do what they love and differentiate themselves totally from price competition, and continually expand their quality of life.
Strategic coaching
Sullivan started coaching business people in 1974, before such a concept really existed. One client told him, “You’re like my strategic coach,” and the term stuck.
Eventually, he hit his own ‘ceiling of complexity’ with one-on-one coaching, “there were only so many hours in the day, and only one of me,” he added. Then he met Babs Smith, an entrepreneur herself, who would go on to become his business partner and his wife. She saw the potential of what Sullivan was doing and built a company around him so they could reach a far greater audience. “Babs is the captain of the ship,” he jokes, “and I’m in charge of entertainment.”
Today, Strategic Coach has grown into an international organisation with workshops being held in London and Canada every 90 days for some of the brightest minds in global business. “While many mastermind groups, seminars, and consultants for entrepreneurs have emerged, no other structure has its integrated approach and wealth of experience at helping entrepreneurs create exponential growth,” Sullivan added.
From a distance Strategic Coach sounds like a self-help gimmick but its success rate speaks for itself. Since its inception more than 14,000 entrepreneurs have participated and contributed to the development of the programme.
Karim Gandour, the founder of the MoneyLine Group in Dubai, is one of the few UAE residents who travel’s, in his case, to London to take part in the coaching programme. He explained that although his business was thriving, chronic fatigue was preventing him from enjoying his success. “I always felt that I needed to attend to matters 24/7, and the line between work hard and play hard became blurry. In summer 2008, I had a health scare where I thought I was suffering from heart palpitations. When the results came back, I found out it was all caused by stress. At that time, I realized I needed to change my lifestyle.”
“Every successful person, whether an athlete or politician, has some kind of coach who holds him or her accountable. For me as an entrepreneur, having a coach in London to hold me accountable every 90 days enables me to meet my personal and business targets. Even if I achieve only 80% of my targets, in the long run, it’s about progress not perfection.”
Karim underscored the importance of ‘habit’ to maintaining his work life balance. “Every 90 days I get the opportunity to evaluate the last 90 days personally and professionally as well as plan for the next 90 days. It allows me to spend time with myself and reflect on my whole life, four times a year,” he added.
A global community of entrepreneurs
The participants in the program range in age from twenty to eighty, are male and female, and come from every conceivable industry, running businesses—sometimes several at once—that span from a single office with a few key team members to multinational corporations with thousands on staff. What they all have in common is the experience of being an entrepreneur in the top one to two percent of their industry and having a commitment to create “a bigger future.” This unique environment for learning and growth is divided into three different income levels—US$100K, $250K, and $500K+—to ensure each group is made up of peers who share common challenges and opportunities.
“Most entrepreneurs fly to their day long workshops in Canada or the UK depending on whichever country suits them better and say that the time spent physically away from their business allows them to think, plan, and make decisions in ways that simply aren’t possible when they’re involved in the day-to-day operations,” explained Sullivan.
“The concepts and tools in the workshops build in an orderly progression, so participants are encouraged to attend every workshop, but there are options for rescheduling. Their personal Program Advisor can help with this, and will also support them in between sessions as they implement the Program in the running of their business.”
Find out more information at www.strategiccoach.com