The Hidden Trap That Steals Your Energy And Blocks Business Success

Shannon Waller: Hi, Shannon Waller here, and welcome to Inside Strategic Coach with Dan Sullivan. Dan, we've been in Free Zone workshops together, and one of the most recent ones, Stephanie Song, one of our fabulous Program Advisors, said something that hit us both. She said, Dan, you keep fixing what works. And we all broke out laughing because it's completely true. And let's talk about that, because fixing what works, what does that mean to you?
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, I think the central concept in Strategic Coach is Unique Ability. So, just to lay out a basic definition is that I believe that every person is born with a capability of performing and achieving results in a totally unique way. And first of all, it's accompanied by really high energy. The person has really high energy, but it's really easy for them to do this because they've been working on it since birth. And it's very important for children to play because I think that play is a way of experimenting with their Unique Ability. That's one fact about that.
 
And I think that entrepreneurs by the way that they've created their economic life, namely that they're not looking for a job, they're looking for a unique role economically where they can perform in such a way that they create a value for other people that, as they say, they're very good at doing this, and secondly, they find it very, very easy to do. And I think all people are born with this ability, but for some reason, they don't get on a track where they're constantly getting better at this, and they're willing to kind of bet their future on their ability to do this. So I don't know why this happens, but entrepreneurs are the proof that it does happen.
 
And so when I'm working with entrepreneurs, all their problems is that they've been diverted away from their Unique Ability. They've been distracted or they've gotten themselves in a situation where less and less are they able to use their Unique Ability. And it frustrates them without knowing why they're frustrated. They don't get rejuvenated by their daily activity, and they actually, they feel tired out. But not only that, they become preoccupied with problems. They become preoccupied with what doesn't work. And I think all of our thinking tools, we remind them one way or another. I think we have several hundred ways of reminding them, but this is your Unique Ability. And we get them back to the point where they actually experience the energy of their Unique Ability.
 
So we're actually fixing what works. And they feel that. There's not a workshop that we have, they're eight-hour workshops, or even two-hour Zoom workshops, where something along the following is expressed: I didn't even know if I was going to come today because I was feeling so frustrated, and now two hours later I feel totally clear, things are simple again. It just feels really good, but it builds. It builds because we come at it from so many different directions that there's a structure where it's easier and easier for them to actually be in their Unique Ability, but they also become hypersensitive to anything that's going to throw them off track.
 
So I think what I loved about Stephanie's comment, it was sitting there, it's been sitting there for 36 years, but nobody had said it. And I said, we're always looking for the great subtitle to Strategic Coach, you know, Strategic Coach, you know, we expand your entrepreneurial freedom. And I said, yeah, well, that's interesting, yeah, but it's sort of abstract, but “we fix what works” just strikes me as a, it just strikes me. I said, that's a killer subtitle. I just like that. What do you mean, you fix what works? It's like a Zen koan, you know. I said, just put a period at the end of that and don't fool around anymore because “we fix what works” really works.
 
Shannon Waller: It does, Dan. I was struck by what you said. Entrepreneurs get preoccupied with what doesn't work. And I think that just really struck me as being true. And if we think about the conversations that people come in in the workshops, and it does change over time in the Program, which is interesting. But let's talk about that preoccupation with what doesn't work. What happens to get people off track?
 
Dan Sullivan: I think there's a big difference of being luckily in circumstances where you get to use your Unique Ability. But it's a long time in life before we develop the ability that we can actually see how we're operating. I think there's something that happens in Strategic Coach where you get to be an observer to how you're performing. And you can just look back and say, wait a minute, wait a minute. It's almost like you have the ability both to be fully engaged in performing, but you also have the ability to step back and actually observe how you're performing, where it's almost like a second person. You're kind of looking at a second person. But this is the only person that you have a total lifetime responsibility for. What it does, it depersonalizes it, okay? And you say, you know, if I was in charge of using this person, who happens to be myself, in the best possible way in this situation, how should this person be performing?
 
Shannon Waller: Ph, that is so cool, Dan. And again, I'm just reflecting on my own experience in the workshop, and that's exactly what it does. You're not just in it, you can work on it, as the expression goes. And the other aspect of that is you're doing that with your other peers in the workshop, right? So you're like, oh, it's very clear what Joe should do, Sarah should do, Carolyn should do, you know, David should do. And then you're like, oh, I should probably do those things too. Because we have all of this wisdom when we can take a little bit of that emotional distance away, and then we get to have that done for ourselves, too.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah. And the real payoff is that you're performing correctly, but you're linking up with other people in the proper way. I mean, as you develop the ability to see what really works for you, there's an interesting thing that happens is that your awareness how anyone that you're working with, that they may be preoccupied with things that aren't working. And I think that all of our entrepreneurs, after a while, have a gift that they can ask questions, they can make observations, and it allows the person they're working with to see what really works for them, too.
 
So it's a growing capability both for yourself, but it's also a growing capability of creating appropriate teamwork. And I differentiate teamwork inside your company—and I'm surrounded by very, very skilled people inside Strategic Coach, you being one, and Gord Vickman, who's in the control booth here, and Willard. And I have long years of experience here that in order for them to perform at the best, I have to set it up in a certain way, because I'm looking for their teamwork. So first of all, you get really, really good at knowing just how you should be performing, but you also develop this expanded capability of knowing how we can best all work together.
 
Shannon Waller: And Dan, you made reference to this the other day. You said, you know, at a certain point, I sort of had myself figured out. And then what I needed to figure out …
 
Dan Sullivan: At age 70.
 
Shannon Waller: At age 70.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, there was a lot of trial and error.
 
Shannon Waller: Once you'd figured that out, then it was about how to be in teamwork with other people.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, teamwork. And then outside the company, I'm developing a real sense of collaboration, which is out in the world where we have collaboration with other people with very, very powerful organizations. Strategic Coach at this point is a very powerful capability in the marketplace. But we're now able to take the Unique Ability of Strategic Coach and link it up in collaboration with other companies. We were just on a Zoom call yesterday with Hay House, which for us is just a terrific publisher. We're now creating what's called an audio original.
 
And so Joe Polish, Genius Network, we're going to have our normal podcast, but the podcast is going to be about how we're going to create a audio original with Hay House. This is not an audio of a book. You know, it's not the spoken version of a book. We're actually going to create a unique project. So there's going to be collaboration between Strategic Coach and Genius Network, but the two of us are going to create unique collaboration with Hay House.
 
Shannon Waller: They are a great collaborator with us. Entrepreneurially minded, you know, great value system.
 
Dan Sullivan: And I thought about that and I pushed it even further and I said that our patents, so more and more these thinking tools that we've created inside Strategic Coach by our teamwork with our clients, our entrepreneurs, we're now having them translated into patent applications, and we have this great, great collaboration with Caldwell Partners in Boston, Keegan Caldwell and his team, and they're able to take our tools and translate them into, I call it patent-ese. It uses words that I identify as English, but when I read the patents, I say, boy, I have no idea what this is, but the Patent Bureau totally understands it.
 
And then there's the Patent Bureau itself, which is a tremendous capability. And they, in a remarkably short time, according to, I think, normal patent applications, they're taking something that got created for our workshop, a thinking tool, it goes to the Caldwell partners. They translate it. They do this in words, and they also do it in diagrams. And then it goes to the right place in the Patent Bureau, and the Patent Bureau says, yes, we recognize this as a unique process that really creates value in the marketplace. It's unique. Nobody else is doing this and we'll grant you patent status. So I see that as a continuation of Unique Ability out in the marketplace. But now it's going way, way beyond myself. It's going way, way beyond just what we're doing in Strategic Coach. It's becoming a new value out in the marketplace.
 
Shannon Waller: I actually really like that description of collaborations as linking up powerful capabilities. I mean, it sounds kind of obvious when I say it out loud, but that's really what it is.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, and everybody gets paid for this, you know, but they're getting paid for something that didn't exist before it was put into the form where it's useful to our clients.
 
Shannon Waller: And with such a high level of teamwork, Dan, first of all, within your own company, and that, well, with you and your team, and then for your company as a whole, and then so you can be a great collaborator, you have to be out of the Gap that happens if things aren't working, right? Circle back to what we started with, which is you have to be focused on what is working and free yourself up to do even more of that and not get distracted by what isn't.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, so to go back to Stephanie's comment, I just found it enormously astute on her part because I'm not really interested in the problem. People have problems, let's solve your problems. I'm not interested in solving people's problems. I'm interested in making their Unique Ability stronger and they'll take care of the problems. They'll stop doing the problem.
 
Shannon Waller: Well, that's a good point, Dan. So many problems are a result of people doing work that they have no business doing with audiences that don't appreciate or like them.
 
Dan Sullivan: I think it's the cause of all problems. Because when you do your Unique Ability, what you create is solutions. So it's interesting. That was just a terrific insight.
 
Shannon Waller: It really is. Dan, one other point about this, it also, both of us have Maximizer as a Clifton Strength, and Maximizer's about taking something that's good and making it amazing. And this is a great description of that, fixing what works, is you're really maximizing the incredible capabilities and talents of entrepreneurs, freeing them up from the stuff so that they can focus on solutions, not problems. So, what is a first action? If someone's listening to this and they're like, oh, I'm focusing on the problems, or I'm not freed up to be my Unique Ability, and I'm not focused on teamwork with other unique capabilities, what's the first, second, third step that people can take to kind of, wherever they're at, up it to the next level?
 
Dan Sullivan: Well, I should say here that at this point in my life, I'm not entirely interested in what people think about this, but I'm very, very interested in what entrepreneurs think about this.
 
Shannon Waller: Okay, entrepreneurs.
 
Dan Sullivan: Yeah, entrepreneurs. That entrepreneurs make a decision that very few people actually make, and that is, number one, to depend upon their own capabilities for their financial future. So they're taking it upon themselves to have the wherewithal to go out into the marketplace straight on. Very few people do this. And they're not looking for some pre-existing structure where they can make money. They're creating a new structure where they can make money. So that's the big thing. And by becoming an entrepreneur, you've made that decision, but it's important that you've made that decision. I have a phrase that once you become an entrepreneur, you have to accept that it's a lifetime sentence. And one is because you get enough of a reward from it that any other way of making your living is not as rewarding.
 
And the second thing is you have to realize that you have to actually create something new that is valuable to other people before you can expect any kind of reward. So you have to be super insightful about what life looks like for someone else, that they're not able to have things work. Okay, you're solving a not-working problem in the marketplace. You're using what works best for you to solve a non-working problem for someone else.
 
I would say that probably every solution, why it's considered a solution in a transaction in the marketplace is because the solution actually frees that person up to do what works. So it seems to me that there's a simple universal principle at work of what makes the marketplace work, is that you're working to free other people up from their what does not work.
 
Shannon Waller: And we do that for entrepreneurs.
 
Dan Sullivan: And we do that for entrepreneurs.
 
Shannon Waller: Great. Thank you, Dan.