Hi tribe!  Here’s a new article I just published on the Huffington Post.

In reading about the scandal involving Rupert Murdoch, phone hacking, and his media empire, it’s hard not to wonder “what the heck were they thinking?” But the real cause of this disaster didn’t come from what these executives were thinking. It came from the way they were leading.

As with many of the banks in our financial scandal, the News Corporation’s culture became known for two things: success and aggression. As reported in the NY Times, Rupert Murdoch’s defining characteristic was the way he treated the media business as a life or death battle for power and success.

“Murdoch has never just been satisfied with besting the competition, as most decent businessmen are. He’s not truly happy unless he has his foot on a competitor’s neck and is pressing it downward. Felix Salmon, a blogger for Reuters, unearthed testimony about an executive who ran one of Murdoch’s more obscure divisions. ‘I will destroy you,’ the man told a competitor, according to the testimony. ‘I work for a man who wants it all and doesn’t understand anybody telling him he can’t have it all.’”

As much as I love writing, I’m not a journalist. Instead, I work as an executive coach. And in my work with business leaders, I’ve noticed that sooner or later, every leader is faced with a crucial, life defining choice: “is it more important for me to succeed or to contribute?” In other words, what is my primary goal in business? Is it just to win and make money? Or is it to find ways where I can make a positive difference?

This isn’t an either/or question. It’s a question of priorities. You have to want to succeed in business. Competition and profitability are essential aspects of the game. And as Joe Nocera points out, even an overwhelming drive to succeed can be natural and healthy when we’re young.

But true leadership means moving beyond the desire to win at all costs. It means holding on to the desire to win, but making that secondary to a new desire: the joy that comes from making a positive difference. It means finding a higher purpose – a greater reason for why we get up and go to work each day – something more than just increasing our piles of possessions and power.

Your higher purpose could be to improve the lives of your customers, to turn the challenges of leadership into opportunities for personal growth, or to develop a culture that brings out the best in your people. It could be to give back to your community, to create something the world’s never seen before, or to mentor up and coming leaders. There are many choices. What’s yours?

When we see an executive featured in a corporate scandal, it’s usually because they became addicted to success. They fell into the trap of defining their self worth by how much money, fame and power they possessed. And sooner or later, this addiction consumed them.

In contrast, authentic leaders have developed a healthy respect for their addictions. They recognize just how seductive success can be. They know just how easy it is to become corrupted by power. They understand just how difficult it is to walk the line between true self confidence and arrogance. And because of this, they choose to surround themselves with people who can help them deal with these challenges instead of exacerbating them.

The problem is that it’s a rare executive who’s able to slow down long enough to really deal with this question consciously. Instead, in the face of the never ending pressure to compete harder, change faster and soar higher, many executives just give in to the demands of the moment. Their higher priorities keep getting put off until tomorrow, while the urgent demands of success keep getting honored today.

I doubt that Jeffrey Skilling woke up one day and decided that he wanted to defraud an entire industry. And I doubt that Rupert Murdoch woke up one day and decided that he wanted to build an empire based on replacing honest journalism with “gossip, sensationalism and manufactured controversy.”

There’s a reason why we say that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Authentic leadership doesn’t just happen. It requires discipline, courage, self-awareness, and external support. It requires shifting from thinking that leadership is about having all the right answers, to realizing that it’s more about asking the right questions. And it requires discovering that above all else, it’s our blind spots we need to watch out for.

Because when an executive gets brought down by a big scandal, they usually don’t have any idea what hit them – until it’s too late.

Hi tribe,
Here you go! The final installment in this series. This is a short video that offers another extremely important key distinction – the difference between being an employee vs. an entrepreneur. If you find this interesting, I *highly* recommend you read “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael Gerber, which will teach you in a profound way, about this distinction.

Love and light,
Brian

P.S. What’s coming next week? It could be amazing!

Here is a great question from T.J. which illustrates the challenges with wealth that show up as we become more conscious.

I am up against some core stuff involving deep resistance to money/wealth/abundance.
I am clear that Spirit wants to bring me wealth in support of my work here and that part of me does NOT want anything to do with this money for fear it will divert me from this bliss I am in now.
Are you or is anyone you know of a real, live wealthy person who is truly conscious, sincere, generous, kind, joyous and free?
Not just sometimes, but this is their state of being always. They exist on the “soul line,” not so much the goal line (not that either line is better, I just do not have an interest in the goal line anymore).
They have no attachment to their things, money, status or security. They live in constant flow and trust.
They give freely without condition or seeking something (power, kudos, adoration, relief from guilt) in return.
For now, I am not interested in books, seminars or coaches to assist me through this unless this is completely, no strings attached FREE (thus clean of being about getting money now or down the line).
I have no real life examples of rich people who have the qualities I want to maintain/grow, and yes, I am seeing through my perceptual lens.

Hi T.J.,
What I hear you saying is that you want to live a life devoted to service and spiritual growth, without having to worry about money or the material side of life. You want to have your financial needs taken care of, without having to focus on them, either as something you’re worried about, or as something you’re chasing after. Is that accurate?

If so, can I offer a distinction that might help clarify your request?

There is a big difference between non-attachment and detachment. The first is spiritual mastery, which Ron and Mary Hulnick define as “full involvement without attachment to the outcome.” The second is denial and spiritual bypass.

Non-attachment is fundamentally a practice of integration. It’s about loving and healing and integrating all of who we are, both body, mind and spirit. It’s about being fully in the world but not of the world, of both transcending our lower aspects while also fully embracing and including them. And it’s fundamentally a process not an event, because the more work we do healing our inner conflicts between the spiritual and the material, the higher we lift in consciousness, and the bigger the gap this growth creates inside us between heaven and earth, money and meaning, profit and purpose, sales and service – which creates the next level of opportunity for growth and integration.

If you’re looking for role models who are actively engaged in the practice of spiritual mastery, who are committed to a life of service while being fully present to the world and it’s challenges, who are embracing the conflicts that automatically arise inside us anytime we seek to integrate the spiritual and the material, and are using those conflicts as opportunities for further growth, I can point you towards some great ones. Ron and Mary Hulnick, Byron Katie, Steve Chandler and Steve Hardison would be a few to start with.

On the other hand, if what you’re looking for are spiritual leaders who are conscious, in full integrity, and are receiving financial wealth and abundance without ever having to get their hands dirty or do the real work of integration that spiritual mastery requires, I don’t know if any of us will be able to help you, because I’m not sure it’s possible.

Does that help at all? I love your request, your commitment to your path, and your authenticity.

The thing is, money means very different things to our different aspects. To my soul/higher self, money is energy. From this place in consciousness, there is no scarcity or death, there’s more than enough of everything to go around, and suffering is just an illusion.

But to my body/basic self, money is like oxygen. It’s what allows me to survive in a Darwinian physical world, where life is a battle for survival, and deep down I know that I (as my basic self and conscious self) are going to die.

So how do we deal with this? If we seek just to live in our higher self by denying our basic self and conscious self, we’re in spiritual bypass and denial. The alternative is to embrace these conflicts, over and over and over again, and use them as the core fodder for deep, integrated, grounded spiritual growth. Does that make sense?

Love and light,
Brian

Hi tribe,
We’re almost done with this series. With this segment, it’s time to wrap things up and summarize what we’ve learned about two very different ways of doing business – traditional business and purpose driven business. One works for us. The other doesn’t. Learn why – and how to change things in your practice for the better.

Love and light,
Brian

P.S. Please enter your comment or question below. I’d love to hear from you!

Hi tribe!

If you’ve been watching these weekly videos, you’ve already learned a few of the most important things I could possibly teach you. And here’s one more. This follows on from last week’s video. If you didn’t watch it yet, you might want to use the playlist (that arrow on the right side of the video) to go back to it. It’s the one titled “the one thing you need to know.”

What do you think? Please enter your feedback below. And we’re also always looking for good practice building questions…please feel free to enter your question as well.

Love and light,
Brian

Hello dear tribe!

Here’s another key learning. In fact, it’s the *one thing* I wish I could share with every practice builder on earth. If I could give one gift, this would be it. Because while most practice builders think their problem is that they don’t know enough about business, the real problem is that they know TOO MUCH. And that sabotages just about everything they do.

Love and light,
Brian

Hello tribe!

This is a *key* video. I’ve had leaders in the field – experts who’ve been teaching practice building for a decade or more – go “WOW!” on this one. It’s *huge.*

Here’s a bit of background. For five years, I kept asking the question “why do different students get such different results from their participation in the Selling By Giving programs?” For example, with one recent group of students, over half of them had increased their incomes by an average of $46,000 a year – and that was only after 3 months in the 6 month program. But I’ve had other groups where these types of income jumps were the exception rather than the rule.

What I finally realized – belatedly – is that there are different stages of practice building, and while we tend to want to jump past the first few, it’s almost impossible to do so. And the goals of each stage are very different. So for someone working on their “yellow belt” a major win would be to get a single, regular, repeat individual client. While for someone working on their “blue belt,” a major win would be to increase their income by $30-$60K/year.

I don’t know of anyone else who’s teaching this. And it’s *key.” So please, watch it, and share it with others.

Love and light,
Brian

Here’s part 4 of “How to Get the Clients You Want and the Money You Need.”

In it, you’ll learn the six questions of Value Based Enrollment. These are the six questions which, when asked and answered deeply by you and your clients, will cause them to enroll themselves in your services.

Enjoy!
Love and light,
Brian

P.S. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to serve you!

Reading time: 3 Minutes

Last weekend I had dinner with one of my heroes. In our industry, most of the leaders are either successful or humble. This man is both. He’s one of the most successful authors and speakers in the self-help field, and he’s remarkably authentic, conscious and purpose driven. He truly models what it means to be an authentic leader and to “Only Connect.”

I didn’t plan this. It came about through a series of synchronicities, as part of an amazing retreat I was attending. One minute I’m talking with some new friends. The next minute I’m sitting down to dinner next to our keynote speaker. (To be fair, this didn’t happen “to me” – I wasn’t a helpless victim in this. I acted like an owner, and had the courage to say yes when the opportunity was presented.)

Question: What would you do in this situation? Think about it…picture yourself sitting next to one of your heroes. What would you say? How would you be?

Like most people, my initial instinct was to go into my fears and self-judgments. “Am I worthy? What if I say the wrong thing? Should I just shut up and let others talk? What can I get from him? How can I convince him that I’m someone special?” etc., etc., etc.

Thankfully, before opening my mouth and inserting my foot, I made two key shifts.

First, I shifted from focusing on myself and what I care about, to focusing on our shared purpose. During his speech, he’d mentioned some of the things he really cares about. Things like creating a legacy and helping train the next generation of leaders.

Second, I shifted from thinking about what I could say, to thinking about what I could ask. Knowing how passionate he is about supporting other leaders, I started by asking the most important question that was present for me. I served him (and myself) by being the best possible student I could.

I listened intently as I ate. I didn’t think about what to say next. I didn’t indulge my self-judgments. I just listened, as deeply as I could.

Then as I finished my food and noticed he hadn’t started his, I asked if I could give him a chance to eat by sharing some ideas I’d been working on so I could get his feedback. (As strange as it might sound at first, I kept coming back to the question…”how can I serve him?” I knew he wanted to eat, and that his greatest joy comes from making a difference…so I looked for a way I could help him do both of these.)

Then even as I started talking, I kept coming back to questions. “Does that match your experience?” “How have you seen this show up?”

I both modelled the core principles of Selling By Giving and shared my diagnosis of some of the root problems our industry faces (problems I knew he cared deeply about.) I didn’t rush to talking about my solution. I connected, asked questions, asked permission, and explored his needs (where are you at / where do you want to be / what’s in the way?) I explained to him the one thing I wish every practice builder knew (the four reasons why traditional business doesn’t work for what we do) and then asked if I could share one concrete tool he might find valuable.

I was shocked by what came next.

He asked if I would come coach his organization.

Telling me that “this could revolutionize the way we market and sell our programs,” he started asking me how we could work together.

SO…a few questions for you.
1) Do you have places where you feel that sales means talking about yourself? If so, how can you change this?
2) What are your most important questions you’d like to have answered? If you had dinner with one of your heroes, what question would you ask? (Feel free to post it as a comment below!)
3) What partner or mentor would you really like to connect with, but have been feeling too scared to reach out to? What is the shared purpose you could focus on that is bigger than your fears?

Plus a gift. I’ve taken the best of the best of what I most wish every practice builder knew, and put in online in a series of short videos. These are being released once a week. This is the material that caused my hero to hire me. It’s at the core of the programs that are helping practice builders transform their businesses (in one of our current groups, 50% of the students have already increased their incomes by an average of $50K a year.)

And it’s free. Here are the first three segments…

How to Get Clients

http://ecoaching.corecoaching.org/?p=263 – Introduction: What You Can Learn (Viewing time: 6 minutes)
http://ecoaching.corecoaching.org/?p=266 – The Power of Key Distinctions (Viewing time: 2 minutes)
http://ecoaching.corecoaching.org/?p=268 – What is Conscious Sales: Really? (Viewing time: 14 minutes)

Enjoy!

Love and light,
Brian

P.S. I’m starting a high end group coaching program in May. This Selling By Giving Master Class offers “double the coaching for half the price.” It’s expensive. Admission is by invitation only. There are no refunds. And it requires a very high level of commitment. It’s open to 8 purpose driven practice builders who are already making at least $25K a year and are committed to doubling their income this year. Based on the level of response I’ve gotten from the first few people I’ve shared it with, I’m expecting it to be filled within the next 1-2 weeks. If you’re interested in applying to be part of this group, please send an email today to whetten@corecoaching.org.

Here’s part 3 of “How to Get the Clients You Want and the Money You Need.”

In it, you’ll learn a crucial key distinction about what it really means to practice conscious sales. It’s quite the mind shift for most people.

Enjoy!
Love and light,
Brian

P.S. Thanks for giving me this opportunity to serve you!