Certified Professional & Executive Life-Coach

Some of the most under-appreciated people in a company are often the people who run the show: the business owners. Few people praise or even notice the hours upon hours you spend on your company, trying to perfect every last detail from product design to marketing materials to financial calculations. On the outset, it looks like the employees are doing all the work, but that’s only because nobody sees the everything this master ring leader is doing, like a conductor in an orchestra.

A conductor is known mostly for their public appearance during a performance. When they conduct music they are controlling the dynamics of the musicians. The tempo, timing of when a musician should come in and out, and the loudness or softness of an instrument being played based on what they think the composer may have wanted. The musicians only need to learn one score based on the instrument they are playing but the conductor has to learn the entire score. What most people also don’t know about conductors is that they are the ones called upon to speak to the local media and provide quotes. They are also involved in many creative decisions and business decisions before the performance season starts; i.e. the auditioning process of musicians, recruiting those they want to work with, or what particular works they want the orchestra to consider.

But just because you’re not as widely noticed or understood in your business practice, this doesn’t mean your value to the company is diminished in any way. Time and what you do with it is one of the great practices, and whomever invests the most time productively (important word being productively) is one of the company’s most valuable asset. I’d even go as far as calling it a time investment, because the more time you put in, generally the higher return on investment there will be. But you don’t want to be a slave to your business for the entirety of its existence; you want to maintain the same income levels- if not more- and be able to scale back a bit, don’t you? There are other benefits to being your own boss, but isn’t this the real reason you started a company or became an entrepreneur – to work your way to where you can take more time off or have time to spend with your family?

To determine how much you’re truly rewarding yourself for all your hard work, calculate your average weekly salary. If you’re working 80 hours per week, for instance, and only taking home $1,500 per week, this is $18.75 per hour. Some employees at your own company are probably making that per hour or make more than that! If this is the case, you should either be paying yourself more or working less.

Seems too simple, doesn’t it? Well it’s not, unless you’re willing to find that wiggle room in the company’s financial budget, or be willing to outsource more work to other employees or independent contractors so that you can reduce your hours. There are those that could probably use a pay cut and be more fair in terms of how revenue is shared amongst the masses keeping their ship running, and there are those business owners have a tendency to keep their pay low for years, saying that it must all go back into the business. At the same time, however, you definitely want to avoid the risk of a burn out, which could happen if you continue along this path without any tangible rewards for what you’ve been doing.

The time is now to focus on other aspects of your business, such as leadership development.  One way to do that is by offering more training to employees and encouraging them to increase their capacities, so that your team becomes strong enough to survive without its leader around 24/7. Only then will you be able to discover your true worth to the business and begin to reap the rewards of your deserving success.

One of my clients posed such an insightful question during her session that I decided to make it the content of my December Newsletter. We were talking about the idea of becoming the bigger version of ourselves, and how all the personal development websites, blogs, articles and newsletters talk about this as if it’s something we’re all supposed to do. I loved the inquiry she was raising – is bigger really better?

The conversation also had to do with the topic of money. So although she does want to make more money, as we all do, our conversation also entailed the inquiry of “Is making more money really better?”  With more money comes more responsibility, along with the desire to spend more and then possibly to take on more expenses because now we can do more with it.

She wasn’t sure how much she resonated with some of the ideas that were being encouraged and acknowledged the inner conflict she was having that may have been getting in her way of actually making more. She was clear about her reasons for wanting to make more money and it wasn’t that she was resisting the actual generating of more income. It was more about the question of “where is our need and desire to earn more money coming from?”

Getting clear about the “why” we do things is what reveals most about what we value and what’s really important to us. So, is the desire to make more money coming from our ego and our need to “look good?”  Or will having more money truly serve her and the world around her, allowing her to have more things in turn enhancing her surrounding environment.

Most of us don’t think about money in this way. Most of the conversations or ideas we have about money are those such as:

-how can I make more?

-where does it all go?

-how will I be able to save more money?

-how come they have more than I do?

-why is it so much easier for other people to make a lot of money and it isn’t for me?

And then there are those really unproductive thoughts about money such as:

-money doesn’t grow on trees

-money is the root of all evil

And then there is this one… a client shared how the joke was on her when she realized that she used to say “I’m going for broke” and how that impacted her financial life.  You can imagine how it did. Needless to say she is “rebuilding” her finances once again.

Money aside…what does a bigger version of you look like? Bigger meaning you are truly utilizing all of your talents; you aren’t letting your fear hold you back and instead are just going for it regardless of how it turns out; you tap into all of your internal resources and see how you can take advantage of your external ones. To continue on this rant…bigger meaning how can I challenge myself more?  What does taking myself to the next level mean? What are those qualities I want to work on and in what way can I improve that can be a benefit to me and be a benefit to others as well?

What have you said no to this year because you talked yourself out of it and found reasons not to do it?  Let’s imagine for a moment that 2012 was the Year of Yes. I got so inspired by this that I bought a beautiful painting that has a “YES” tree on it. It was at a time that I was really practicing just saying yes, even in the face of fear.

By saying yes to accompanying a friend to Guatemala, apart from having an amazing vacation, it then lead me to saying yes to volunteering to develop content and facilitate at a University in China. By saying yes to joining a networking group this past April, that lead me to growing my business by 33%; I have increased my own professional capacities (such as networking, how to quickly and effectively represent what I do, and increase my exposure so more people know who I am), and who knew that one of the group members who became a client would set me up on a blind date with the fun result being – we hit it off.

Believe it or not when I was thinking about joining my Le Tip group, I saw it as “a risk” and wasn’t sure what my return on investment would be.  Apart from growing my business of course to make more money, I was clear about what I wanted to learn and thought, “heck, I haven’t tried it yet so why not?” So what risk are you willing to take so that you can become a bigger version of yourself?  And is it really a risk when your life isn’t on the line? Okay so sometimes it can be perceived as a financial one, but what might you learn as a result of the experience?

If you’re clear about your intentions and you know what you value, well then honoring yourself can never be a risk. Make 2012 your Year of Yes and see what happens.  If in the end, you end up “looking good”, well then so be it.

When it comes to improving ourselves, we usually seek out external sources, such as self-help programs, books, podcasts, seminars, and yes coaches too. It’s almost as if a lot of people have lost sight of the many rich experiences they’ve had through life and what they were all for.  So oftentimes we neglect what could potentially be our greatest teacher: ourselves.

Strange concept? Not quite. After all, we can read all the books in the world and have hours upon hours of coaching sessions, but at the end of the day, the only one who is willing to initiate the change is you. As a business owner or a professional of any kind, developing leadership skills or improving upon the foundations you currently have, are the first few steps towards higher profitability and more productivity in the workplace. I know you have all heard this before but do you really know what that means? Or another question to ask is “Are you fully aware of yourself?” What I’m referring to more specifically are your strengths, goals, skills, and attitudes. If not, this is where the first step is taken toward the path of higher success as well as personal growth.

This concept of “self coaching” takes practice and if practiced frequently can allow you to take the steps necessary to improving yourself, which will later allow you to determine exactly where you want to be at in your life and business. Only perseverance will get you to this point, because you have to truly want to change something about yourself.  That awareness and desire are two primary challenges, then next comes the willingness to put in the effort required to internalize those demands for change so the world can see a visible change in character and leadership abilities on the outset.

Leadership qualities also include interpersonal relations, which can be further enhanced once you have taken the first step of improving yourself. Leadership happens all the time, whether you’re talking on the phone, or sitting at a bar or restaurant. How you react to and engage in a conversation determines who you are as a leader and how you effectively manage yourself in social situations.

If you’re looking to be somewhere other than where you are right now, then it is time to start making the necessary changes to making those goals happen. Coaching can be a wonderful tool, but if you do not apply your new knowledge, which again just takes practice, then all the coaching you have had becomes useless. An unwillingness to internalize changes that will then produce new effects on the external figure of yourself only delays your process of evolvement.

You may also be one of those “hands off” leaders who choose not to micromanage, and that once your employees get it, you leave them alone. Allowing others to run with their responsibilities can be empowering for them, yet how are you being an example of leadership if you aren’t involved to some extent?  Being a leader is not just about telling people what to do or making decisions; you must also have the leadership qualities in place in order to be the most efficient leader possible.

You can be your own worst enemy and your own best friend. So when I say “through persistence and a determination you can become a better and bigger version of you”, what does this specifically look like or mean for you? A few ways you can engage in this self-exploration is by talking to a friend, a colleague or maybe someone you manage about what kind of leader you appear to be. I’ve heard that the fear around this is that it will make you appear weak or insecure, but if done in a powerful forthright way, you might also appear strong and assured since you’re willing to ask a typically perceived uncomfortable question.  In fact it’s the courageous leader who is willing to ask uncomfortable questions of situations, themselves and others. The results you’ll get and the enhancement of your interpersonal skills is what will support you in you being the leader your business deserves.