The Dan Sullivan Question
I've been getting executive coaching since November, 2017. I meet with the coach virtually for an hour every two weeks or so (with time off for tax season, etc). It's an oddly helpful thing. I often can't see where or how she helped me, but I can see the problems I brought to the engagement being slowly solved. I like to think that I do this for my own clients: help keep focused on our intention.
My intention is to be excellent at my job. I don't have a manager to guide and push me, and I miss that sometimes. The virtual coaching helps, as do mentors in my industry. Several of them have mentioned the benefits of executive coaching. Trouble with over-promising? Procrastinating? Over-working? Not sure how to solve a personnel problem? Who helps the small business owner with these challenges? I have no desire (or need) to go back to grad school, I already did an MBA program twenty-some years ago. I go to two conferences a year, but they're mostly on technical content. Enter "Strategic Coach". After years of hearing about them, I've finally decided to sign up. I'll be flying to Toronto for one day of training every quarter.
Dan Sullivan (the founder of Strategic Coach) is famous for several coaching techniques, but one of them is the "D.O.S. Question". I assume his middle initial is O, although I don't know. But here's the question:
If we were having this discussion three years from today, and you were looking back over those three years, what has to have happened in your life, both personally and professionally, for you to feel happy with your progress?
Specifically, what dangers do you have now that need to be eliminated, what opportunities need to be captured, and what strengths need to be maximized?
His book goes into an explanation that D=dangers (in SWOT terms those would be weaknesses plus threats), O=opportunities, and S=strengths. Heh, I totally learned that in grad school. But have I applied it lately to myself? Oh no, I have not.
I hope to get better at doing essential things, and better at letting go of things I ought not to be doing. I'd like to figure out how to manage humans again. I'd like to figure out how to handle the problem of having two expensive homes with a husband about to retire. I have a bunch of brilliant ideas stewing in my brain (Cash for your Cache and GYDSU), and I need to figure out a succession strategy someday. My business revamp six years ago was supposed to have solved some of these issues. The failure of the 2013-2015 business means I started all over again 2016-2018. Now I'm in a good place in terms of being functional (and profitable) again, but I'm still stuck with a lack of exit strategy from the home-office/business that lives entirely in my brain. My current plan is to spend 2019-2021 working this business, getting Small Boy through college, getting my husband retired, and then be ready to pivot again. What stays, what changes? Where will I be? I have no idea right now and I'm fine with not knowing. But that's partly because I'm embarking on a three year program of executive coaching. I can be okay with not knowing (yet) if I'm on a path to getting it figured out.
The roomba is my spirit animal.