Organizations have changed a lot over the past 50 years, and it’s vital for entrepreneurs to be aware of these changes if they want to achieve great business success. In this episode, Dan Sullivan, who has been coaching entrepreneurs for 50 years, talks to fellow business coach Shannon Waller all about the changes in companies that have taken place over the past half-century and the very different position that entrepreneurs are in today.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• What gave Dan confidence to become a business coach.
• How Dan’s desire to coach got married to entrepreneurism.
• How Strategic Coach® helps entrepreneurs thrive in the current economy.
• The way to give your team members roles, not just jobs.

Show Notes:

The invention of the microchip allowed entrepreneurs to have a lot of power and capability they’d never had before.

The introduction of the microchip meant large corporations would start to fracture and wouldn’t be as effective or useful.

It might take three months to get a decision from large organizations, but entrepreneurs can decide to hire you, and write you a check, in the moment.

About every 15 years, the number of employees required in an organization is about half of what it was 15 years previously.

Now that small companies with microchip power can be powerful economic forces, government has adjusted to make the process of incorporation faster and easier.

We’re partway through a 50-year period in which we’re shifting from large, pyramid-shaped organizations to network-based organizations.

Artificial intelligence can do work that used to require many people to do.

A lot more people can own companies and have leadership positions now than they used to.

Canada, especially Ontario, is one of the easier places in the world to incorporate.

Being a bureaucrat in a large pyramidal organization used to be the safest job in the economy, but is now among the riskiest.

Being an entrepreneur has become the safest role.

Resources:

The Great Crossover by Dan Sullivan

Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage

Unique Ability®

Do you believe in luck, or do you make your own success? In this episode, Dan Sullivan explores the concept of luck in entrepreneurship. Drawing from 50 years of coaching experience, he reveals how successful entrepreneurs create their own paths, often starting young by seeking opportunities to grow their wealth. Discover how self-made success intertwines with luck in the entrepreneurial journey.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• The top ways Dan has been lucky.
• Why it’s more difficult for someone born into wealth to become an entrepreneur.
• The new Strategic Coach® thinking tool that will help you recognize and increase your luck.
• Why being an entrepreneur requires a lot of courage.
• How Strategic Coach is run like a live theater company.

Show Notes:

50% of your success comes from luck, and 50% of it comes from the ability to take advantage of the luck you've had.

An entrepreneur’s success is an act of self-creation.

Entrepreneurs create their own income streams and their own capabilities.

Entrepreneurs understand intuitively that freedom requires money.

It’s difficult to separate luck from skill.

The U.S. is an entrepreneurial country created by entrepreneurs.

Even the challenges you’ve faced have shaped who you are today.

Recognizing the luck you’ve had keeps you centered and grounded.

Whether your capability drives your luck or vice versa depends on your perspective.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage

Do you believe ambition fades with age, or can it actually grow stronger? In this episode, Shannon and Dan discuss how ambition evolves over time, share Dan's desire to be even more ambitious at 90, and reveal how transforming ambition into action can lead to growth and fulfillment at every age.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Dan’s strongest ambition relates to ambition itself.
• What you can gain by sticking to what you’re great at and love doing.
• How Dan came up with the goal of living to the age of 156.
• Ways you can lean into expanding your ambition.
• Why it’s easier to move forward than to maintain your position.
• Why some successful entrepreneurs get discouraged when they think about their ambition.
• The dire consequences of giving up your ambition.

Show Notes:

People begin to feel old when they stop making commitments—and stop prioritizing courage.

When entrepreneurs focus exclusively on doing what they’re great at and love doing, their impact multiplies. When combined with technology, the results are exponential.

Since your skills and capabilities will be much greater 10 years from now, your goals can be much bigger in 10 years too.

When you’re ambitious, all sorts of unexpected opportunities and experiences become available to you.

When you view ambition as an action, it becomes something you can invest your talent, skills, and time into.

Ambition is a skill made up of a number of subskills.

When your brain normalizes the idea that you’re going to live far longer than normal expectations, it changes your understanding of the present.

Time only speeds up when you think you’re running out of it.

Being unable to imagine yourself with more ambition in the future robs you of your power in the present.

No one’s interested in being in teamwork with someone who’s stopped growing.

Your real age has to do with what lies ahead of you—and your imagination.

What human beings most look for in other human beings is commitment and courage.

Commitment and courage create capability.

If you’re more committed and more courageous, it’s easy to be more ambitious.

Confidence is the reward for acquiring a new capability.

With a higher level of confidence, you can make greater commitments.

To make any significant improvement or change in your life, you have to be 100% committed to doing it.

You only truly start aging when you give up your ambition.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

My Plan For Living To 156 by Dan Sullivan

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan