The sad part is most people will not get to this outcome and may end up with painful regret in retirement asking themselves:
Did I really Live Out My Purpose? Did I really matter? Can I honestly tell God that I lived to my fullest potential?
But why is that?
Because for those of us called to be CEOs, it requires an enormous amount of faith and boldness to leave the comfort zone of a paycheck and shift the focus to the value we bring to the marketplace. Most people fail to make the switch.
Even if we think this is common sense, it's no secret that most businesses fail within the first few years and this is specially true for those doing it part time while still working in Corporate.
Let me share a bit about my journey...
Growing a business part time was really challenging in my life. When you are married, with kids, and you have a hectic full time work schedule, our businesses tend to get the leftovers of our life.
With so many people flooding the online world and more noise than ever before, this can leave you with very little chances at succeeding.
After trying to follow the standard marking advice we are given as coaches, I struggled to get new coaching clients and this resulted in tears, pain and questioning myself:
Is this really my calling? Is this just a passion project? God, where are you?
To cover the pain, I began to hide behind my BOSSES: corporate job, spouse, kids , fear, shame, more training... A year passed by and it felt like I had made no progress, still in the hamster wheel of an energy draining job.
Then I began, like many others, to hire marketing gurus to give me the "shortcut" to make six figures in a few weeks without investing any effort or time. Tens of thousands of dollars later, I still had no momentum in my business.
But this is the sad reality...
Many of these gurus mean well, they do want to make an impact, and some of their clients (for most is the minority) have achieved great results.
But they tend to not spend any time with you! They throw you into a group, let you do some Q&A, have you go through their program and pretty much let you on your own. You never get to work directly with the guru.
Unfortunately, many people spend their last pennies on this "magic bullet" program and obsess over a specific marketing strategy: webinars, books, courses, etc. Many of them even quit their jobs and are left with shattered dreams, without any money to pay the bills, and some even losing their houses in the process.
I was blessed to learn a lot from these mentors, and I spent a year hiding behind more training. But I can confidently say that I never made a single dollar from Ads, Podcasts, Books, Webinars, Challenges, Blogs prior to making my first 6 figures as a coach. Clients invested $5K+ to work with me as a Business/High Performance Coach, many with several renewals lasting months or even over a year.
Do you know a BONUS of what happens when you become a CEO of your business, get clients and step fully into your God Given potential?
You become a magnet of attention and others beg to have you around... yes, even your own boss in corporate. By the time I left corporate, I was working from home remotely (Pre-COVID!), working 50% less hours and making 30% more in compensation.
Meanwhile, most of the other coaches were failing. It seemed like 9 struggling coaches out of every 10. I saw people lose their house, unable to pay their bills, struggling to even find a job again.
While they were obsessing on the next big marketing idea, I was working consistently on adding massive value to clients and increasing cash collected month after month until I quit my full time corporate job as an executive in Sillicon Valley.
PLEASE NOTE: I never made a single dollar from coaching by the hour, Podcasts, Books, Webinars, Challenges, Blogs or Online Courses prior to making my first 6 figures as a coach.
It was heart breaking to see people with a coaching gift, trying to serve others, but unable to get premium clients... It was these coaches stuck in corporate who inspired me to make a difference in their life.
Having worked for a decade with CEOs, helping scale small businesses 300%+, responsible for budgets of over $100M, I decided to leverage my business/MBA background to help these coaches become real CEOs of their business.
There are many great mentors out there and I'm certain they mean well. But what most of us need is someone to look at our specific calling, our unique work and family situation and our goals and help us craft a roadmap to become full time CEOs. And we need that to happen as a quick as possible to avoid wasting years in the process.
What a waste, spending on of most valuable asset, time, in a job that is slowly sucking the life out of you like a vampire...