Strategic Coach Resources

The advantage of knowing your peers.

As an entrepreneur, you have many advantages over those who do not own their own business. You get to decide how you spend your time, who you want to spend it with, and how much money you make. But there are costs, too, to leaving the structure that corporations and other non-entrepreneurial situations offer. One of those is often a reduced opportunity to build relationships with your peers.

We interviewed Bob Ducato, Lila Gee, Ernie Slatter, and Colleen Bradley, four entrepreneurs who have just completed the first year of The Strategic Coach Program™, and have developed a friendship over the course of the year. We asked them how they’ve benefitted from the new relationships they’ve developed in their quarterly workshops.

Bob Ducato says that “when you can openly share your thoughts and feelings and learn so much from the others in the group as well as from your coaches, you tend to come away feeling that you are someone with a mission. And that mission is what your life is all about."

Colleen Bradley sees the value of being in a group of like-minded people who “one, are not content with the status quo and want to improve their lives; two, are not afraid to admit that what and how they did things in the past didn’t really work; three, may be uncomfortable with the process but do it anyway; four, have a passion for life; and, five, can laugh and learn at the same time.”

The collective experience of a group is a valuable source of wisdom which, otherwise, would have to be developed from scratch. As well, the challenges of gaining this experience are daunting without the sense of perspective that others can provide. Says Ernie Slatter, “So little of our lives is spent with dynamic, goal-oriented people,” but with this group “there seems to be recognition of both setbacks and accomplishments, with each having a place in the process.”

Colleen says that Lila “encourages me when I’m drained from encouraging everyone else in my life.” To her, Ernie is “a real role model for me to slow down and notice, ask myself how that made me feel and what I can learn about it.”

Being an entrepreneur is a unique lifestyle choice. Not everyone will understand your issues and challenges, but other entrepreneurs do. Finding or creating a community of your peers can provide a welcome source of confidence, encouragement, learning, and inspiration.

This article orginally appeared in the semiannual newsletter, Strategic Seasonings issue 06, 2000 [208KB PDF].