Build a great company on a powerful foundation!
YOUR BUSINESS screwed up. Publicly.
You had that blowup with the big customer, and they’re threatening a lawsuit. The press is snooping around and is going to eviscerate you on the front page of the business section.
Things are getting ugly and the pressure is on.
Like it or not, this is bound to happen to you a few times during your lifetime. Read the rest of this entry »
TODAY I HAVE questions but no answers.
I’ve been doing some work recently with another coach, and have found it to be highly valuable. It’s been probably ten years since I’ve worked on my own statement of purpose. I’d like to think that I’ve developed and grown since then.
Here’s the current version of my purpose statement: Read the rest of this entry »
OK, I’LL ADMIT IT: Sometimes my own foundation feels a little uncertain. Despite the fact that I’ve been building this momentum for 15 years now and have been seeing considerable success in the last year, I still have my moments of doubt.
I think it’s part of the human condition.
What do you do when you’re starting to doubt your values and principles? Read the rest of this entry »
THOM SCHULTZ 
runs a Loveland, Colorado based company named Group Publishing. It started 40 years ago as Group Magazine, and quickly expanded to deliver a wide variety of Christian resources for children, youth, and adults.
This is a for-profit company, privately held, delivering religious goods. Their primary customers are Christian churches, groups, and individuals. So I’m not surprised that they base the company on Christian values, and are completely open about it.
But the story doesn’t end there.
JANUARY is a great time to start out with a clean slate.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the powerful concept called “zero based budgeting.” The idea is that you start from scratch and justify EVERY penny you’re spending. Sounds painful, huh?
But there are times when you just get so much stuff built up around your plans and obligations that you lose sight of what’s truly important.
In the previous issue, I talked about how we as coaches can help our clients build deep values into a business. In this context “deep values” refer to those motivations that are more important than just making money and delivering products or services.
I find that many coaches are seeking to build just this kind of businesses: one founded upon and expressing deep values. As a Christian coach, it’s likely that you want to include your own faith as part of the foundation of your coaching practice.
Do you want your coaching to make a difference in the world? Here’s a game plan for making that happen.
OUR 
CHRISTMAS SEASON is now drawing to a close: Today is the twelfth day, and tomorrow is Epiphany!
It’s a time for renewal, in many ways.
The craziness of the secular holiday season is behind us. Even if you just celebrate it as a time to be with family, it can be nuts. Then with gift-giving and religious celebrations, it’s the busiest time of the year.
GOALS AND VALUES can be tough to deal with. Their very nature makes them hard or impossible to attain, especially on a consistent basis. And when you have idealistic values as the foundation of your business, it’s possible to feel that your foundation is shaken when you’re unable to hit those high ideals.
For whatever reason, we humans tend to focus on failure more than success. And we tend to be most critical of ourselves.
I was pondering this morning how close we are to eradicating Polio from the planet. It’s an astounding goal, actually, because we rarely get to declare a 100% victory on anything. Read the rest of this entry »
THIS WEEK is the time to focus on Christmas. It’s an interesting and conflicted time for modern Christians, because our society is telling to focus on buying, giving, rushing, and generally going crazy.
If you have a retail business, this is impossible to escape. You’re going nuts with promotions, employee shifts, maybe bad weather … just holding on for dear life until things return to “normal” in 2014.
But for our salvation, this should be simple. Read the rest of this entry »
CHRISTMAS 
and the other holidays can be a crazy time of year. Retail, especially, can go nuts. But there’s others, like what’s happening with health care insurance right now.
Just crazy.
But I’ve found that this can be an enjoyable kind of busy-ness Read the rest of this entry »
