Don't Wait for the Fire to Stop: When to Bring in a Coach

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Hi, friends. Welcome to the Triple Margin Freedom Podcast, the podcast that's
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designed for entrepreneurs, executives, and nonprofit leaders,
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those people who are building, leading, doing something bigger than themselves.
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This podcast is here to help you open up profit, time, and teamwork that runs Unstoppable.
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I'm your host, Mark Mathai, and today I'm in studio and we're going to do a
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monologue and the monologue is going to be in a new format, a little bit shorter
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format for these intermittent kind of monologue type podcasts.
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And then we'll leave the interview podcast to just be interview podcast.
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But today I'm going to answer a question that I think is a really important
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question that came in through one of my socials.
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He said this, I know I need and want expert support for my business.
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Something like coaching.
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I even know who seems to be the right fit, but I'm too busy.
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I'm not even keeping up at home with my wife and children.
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So my question to you is, when should I add coaching? When is the right time to move?
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Okay, that's a great question and it's a fair question. And honestly, one that I get a lot.
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And so when is the right time to bring in a coach?
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The first thing that I would have to say about that is unlike most activities
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or most programs or most things you bring in to your business or your life.
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Coaching isn't additive like all those other things.
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And what I mean is when you sign up for a program, you sign up for a class,
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you sign up for school, whatever, it's additive, right? You add a day or two
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out to process to do this.
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Coaching's a bit different in that the ask of you is really to think and to meet.
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So there's a little bit of that. But coaching itself, the very nature of what
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coaching stands for and should bring is leverage.
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It's not added. It's not adding.
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And for most busy owners or executives or nonprofit executives that I work with.
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That busyness requires the right leverage to get out of the cycle of busyness and back into the cycle,
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of controlled execution, of predictable success, and of moving your organization forward.
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So here's three things that I'll share with you that hopefully after this podcast,
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you'll have a better idea on.
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Short answer to the question, don't wait until the fire stop because you are
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fooling yourself if you think they're going to stop.
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You're always going to be through another iteration, another cycle, another challenge.
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So the best time to bring on a coach is when you find the right coach for your
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circumstances, when you develop the right need for that coach.
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So if your family life and fatherhood is breaking down and your business remains
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challenging, I would say that's the best time to bring in a coach.
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Why? Because we want to salvage that.
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We want to use leverage to actually get your time back. So that's the short
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answer, and here's how you get it done.
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So the first thing when I encounter that with my clients is I really want to
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know what the root cause of the busyness is in the business.
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Now, it's probably a people challenge, a process challenge, or a policy challenge.
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I threw in policy challenge because if I work with a larger corporation,
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maybe I'm working with a C-suite executive, a lot of times we're ruled by compliance or the policy problem.
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But it's important that we get a hold of what is the root problem that's causing this. Okay.
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This is where coaching helps.
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Coaching helps you identify what that root problem is, and then we can move
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forward with intention.
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Again, we're lining up behind the right domino, the one domino that could knock
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over all the other dominoes for you.
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So let me ask you this question before we leave here.
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What is the root cause of your busyness? Is it a people issue?
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Is it a process issue? Or is it a policy issue? sit with that a little bit and answer that number two.
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Being stuck in firefighting mode, okay? Now, this is typically what happens
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when we get in there. Now, there is some thrill to firefighting.
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Some people get stuck in firefighting mode because firefighting mode actually
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develops into a habit so deeply ingrained, it becomes part of your self-worth.
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So if there's not a fire to put out, or if you're not running around,
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if you're not half stressed, or if your blood pressure's not up,
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you're actually disappointed in yourself.
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Don't let your late nights be an ego issue.
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This is where we have to do a little deep work. We have to really find out what
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is the attraction to the firefighting mode and what are you holding back from
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your team when you enter into firefighting mode?
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Now, to do that, one of the questions I like to bring up to executives is to
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get, first of all, a clear understanding of what their superpower is.
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What is their best strength in action?
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So I typically will ask a question like, what's the one thing that you bring
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to your organization that if you don't bring it, it won't get done?
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What's the one thing that you
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really do well and that you're building the entire organization around?
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Now, when you get clear about that one thing in you, you know exactly where
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you need to be positioning yourself. Then we can look at this firefighting thing for what it is.
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I was working with an executive, a nonprofit executive, who's incredibly talented,
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incredibly smart, and was incredibly caught up in a cycle of firefighting.
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Now flash forward when we started asking those questions we realized that the
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superpower of this particular executive
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was fundraising community social getting out there building it up,
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but she was spending 90 of her time in operations putting out fires working on personnel issues.
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So once we have clarity on that, what is her strength, then we start to imagine a new world.
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What would it look like if you had more time to go out and network,
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fundraise, do the things that you're really called to do?
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And the answer would surprise you. It was like, well, that would be a relief. I would be so happy.
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So in one key question, what is the one thing that you bring to your organization
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that if you don't bring it, it won't get brought.
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And then building around that helped give us a really good idea of what that
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first domino was in that case, which was, I have to unplug from operations so
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that I have more time to plug into this.
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And to do that required some massive action on her part to get her team ready,
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and to get serious about bringing her best self to work every day.
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By the way, successful, successfully did that, opened up enough time that she
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actually got her weekends back.
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She actually got her family back and she's actually been able to take some new
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hobbies and the health of the organization has never been better.
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Isn't that awesome? Okay. Last one, the death spiral. I'm too busy.
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The death spiral is, I'm too busy, so I work more, I sleep less,
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I demand more of myself and everyone else. That doom spiral tends to be the
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death of the entire organization.
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So what if we flip the script on that? Instead of giving up.
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Instead of going to work first, work more, sleep less, demand more,
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what if we flip the script and we did something like this?
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What if we prioritized your well-being? What if we prioritize sleep?
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What if we prioritize the work that you do and the work that you share?
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What would happen if we flipped the script on that death spiral?
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Too busy, more work, sleep less, demand more.
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Well, what's happened in the past is that it hasn't done anything but lift the
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organization up. See, whatever you're fighting, whatever that spiral is for
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you, think about flipping the script.
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Because I want to tell you right now, when you start to prioritize things like
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your well-being, your sleep, your health, your engagement, your attitude changes.
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That attitude change is contagious. It leaks into your team.
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Then you start to get, instead of demanding more, you start to ask more.
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And when you ask more, you're not asking them to do more things and run and
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grind. You're asking them to do more things in the same way that you'll do more
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things in the one thing that you can do better than anybody else.
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So I would just say this. Like a domino, we need to fix the root problem.
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And that root problem is typically a process, a people issue,
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including yourself, leader, or a policy issue.
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And if you're lodged in policy, you just need a clear understanding of the purpose
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of compliance, why it's there, and how to partner with it.
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Coaching isn't additive. My answer, don't wait.
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Your dark and twisty cycles will not change until you start to learn how to
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break those habits and create for yourself new habits that can replace those.
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So if you're interested in finding more profit for your business,
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more time back on your calendar and teams that run Unstoppable,
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Message me at markmathiahcoaching.com and let's schedule a free profit investigation,
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a free time investigate, just a free coaching session to help you,
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figure out what the root is and what the next step forward can be.
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And when we do that, I really believe that we will create more profit,
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create more time, and give to our teams exactly what they need from us so that
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they'll run unstoppable.
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Thanks, everyone. Enjoy your weekend.