I’ve studied the successful entrepreneur enough to know that one thing that we all have in common is a healthy amount of optimism.

This quotation gets to exactly what I’m meaning. And, says it better than I can, so here goes:

“Optimists don’t allow doubt to linger or to discourage them from their goals. There is something else this group shares, and that’s toughness. Optimism isn’t based on any pie-in-the-sky naiveté. It is a hard earned choice.” – Byron Pitts, 2009

Pitts is a CBS correspondent who as child was labeled, “illiterate”. This quotation is taken from an excerpt found in his 2009 book Step Out on Nothing.

I wonder how you would rate your over-all level of optimism.  Do you have a healthy level of toughness that is positive?

If so, Neil and I invite you to share your recipe or anecdotal note on this topic.

About the Author:  Lyn Christian is the founder of SoulSalt, Inc., a coaching and coach training company.  She is passionate about the “free-agent” worker who wants to earn their living and live their lives by doing what inspires them.  Get more information by visiting www.soulsalt.com or contact Lyn directly through lyn@thecoachtoolkit.com.

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I had the opportunity to listen to the children’s choir at our church recently.  As you might expect, the little cherubs brought tears to many a parents eyes.  While the message from the song fit the day, I was especially intrigued by the director’s efforts to have children from ages 3 to 9 singing a round (like “row, row, row your boat”).

I’m sure a children’s choir in any setting and singing any round could have produced the same effect for me as the group did on this day.  For me, this was a true case of the truth that comes out of the mouths of babes.  It’s not so much what they were singing, but in the result that was produced by all of the individual efforts.  Three lessons for entrepreneur’s came to mind and I even wrote them on the back of the bulletin so that I could share.

1.  You carry the tune of those around you. The children who seemed to work the hardest were the ones standing next to a group singing a different part of a round.  You could just watch their mouths moving on their lyric and then suddenly it was like they lost all control and starting singing the words of their neighbor.  And once they were off, they struggled even harder to get back to their purpose.

Think of yourself as the average of your five closest business associates.  Is your song so different from theirs?  Is that the song you want to sing?

2. Singing with enthusiasm overcomes all obstacles.   There was one little girl in the front row—definitely under 4—who stood right in front of a microphone and sang at the top of her voice.  Nothing or nobody in the rest the choir could match her production.  When they got to the end and she raised her hands like she was singing a show tune, there was no one who could doubt her presence in the group.

What is the tune to make you play electric guitar or raise your hands for the final chords?  What do you want to sing?  Of course, having a microphone helps.  Who can be your microphone?

3. We all have a voice in chaos.  As strange as it sounds, when I focused on a child and watched their face, I could get some idea of their role in the final cacophony.  The same thing really happens in business.  Is your business just like the others?  What makes your voice special?

I loved the metaphor that these children brought to mind.  What chorus have you been listening to lately?

About the Author: Neil Phillips is a founding partner of Team Connections and Director of the DSWA Coach Excellence program.  Get more from Neil on his Direct Selling Notebook , the DSWA Coaching Center and Twitter. You may contact him directly through neil@thecoachtoolkit.com. 

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Take a look at this graph. Take a close look. Without any clues from me, let your instincts guide you to wonder what the pattern might represent. What do you think?

Would you guess that this particular pattern follows what is called Zipf’s law? The law is easily observed in scatterplotting data or in a bar graph like the one above. The law basically shows how our culture loves a “winner”, the superstar performers. In a nutshell there is a big gap between those who are “best in the world” and those who follow in the top ten ratings. The graph above, according to the International Ice Cream Association, outlines the top ten flavors of ice cream: Vanilla is first, followed by Chocolate, Butter Pecan, Strawberry, Neapolitan, Chocolate Chip, French Vanilla, Cookies and Cream, Fudge Ripple, and, finally, Praline. *

It takes extra effort and time to be the best in any given category. It takes a personal desire to give something no one else can or will. What would you most want to be known as the best of? What are you able to do with world-class results?

No matter what, have the guts to be willing to stick with something until you master it. Extraordinary benefits accrue to the small majority that can stay focused on doing what it takes to be the best. Start small by playing with the idea of excelling in an every day way. Begin the pattern that can translate to greatness in big ways. Feel what it is like to reach peak performance so you can duplicate that expression deeper into your life. Write to us about your goal of reaching excellence in one significant place and your success in reaching it. If Vanilla can do it, so can you!

*Adapted from The Dip by Seth Godin which I highly recommend you read if this information was useful to you.

About the Author: Lyn Christian is the founder of SoulSalt Inc. a coaching and coach training company. She is passionate about the “free-agent” worker who wants to earn their living and live their lives by doing what inspires them. Get more information  by visiting www.soulsalt.com .

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Lyn & Neil

If you have been following our Facebook posts, newsletters, and posts in other blogs, you will know that we have been going through the last fits and starts before we officially launched this blog and all of the opportunities it offers to entrepreneurs and their coaches.

Please, feel at home and visit the different areas.  Within the next few days, we will be writing about free downloads from the book and some other offers that didn’t make it in the book.

Here is the first one:  Sign up for this blog.  We know (hope?) that lots of you will.  To help you make up your mind, we are making a special offer.  Either subscribe through the RSS feed or through the email option.  Then send an email to neil@teamconnections.org.  We will send you (within 72 hours), chapter 3 from our book.  Chapter Three is an exploration of  “Core Ideology of the Entrepreneurial Business.”    This chapter walks you through the steps of articulation of the core values that anchor your business, a reformulation of those values into a mission statement, and clarification of your vision statement for the future.  This offer expires on midnight, October 8, 2009.

So sign up, work through the chapter, and let us know if it works for you.

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On behalf of Lyn and myself, I am pleased to welcome you to the Coach Toolkit.  Our goal is to extend the concepts, strategies, and possibilities that are started in our book, The Entrepreneur’s Toolkit: A Self-Coaching Guide to Small Business.

 This blog is a joint effort on our part to share what we feel and know about coaching, particularly self coaching for entrepreneurs.  The entrepreneurs, as a group, want to follow their own path to their own visions.  Lyn and I have both discovered that much of our coaching is helping them to frame their own questions.  What should you expect here?

Thought Starters. Coaching taps into our ability to visualize and plan for the future.  We want to give some opportunities to explore your future possibilities.  For example, we often talk about finding your emotional “why” and your material “why” so that you can find a place in your business world to live your passion.  What if we have it backwards?  Could we consider taking our passion to every job?  Just asking you to think about it.

Varied Opinions.  We sometimes disagree and want you to take the opportunity to share your opinion.  One of our goals is to “improve the quality and quantity of coaching available to entrepreneurs.”  We don’t always see eye-to-eye on what that statement means.  Believe me when I say that you will come to see and appreciate the differences between us.  You will have the opportunity to choose what fits your situation, try it on for size, and wear it like a second skin.  If you want to add your voice, we welcome your comments and guest postings.

New Tools.  If we don’t try something new, we won’t get anything new, right?  A SWOT analysis is a great tool for entrepreneurs.  Have you tried to visualize a hedgehog?  There’s more to come.

Book Reviews.  Coaches read (a lot).  We want to share the good, the bad, and the ugly with you.  Right now, I’m working hard to finish Li and Bernoff’s groundbreaking book on Groundswell.

Much more.  You will find shout-outs for other blogs, hurrahs for coaching achievements, new credentials, new coaches joining our ranks, and about anything you can imagine about coaching entrepreneurs.

Watch us.  Like most entrepreneurial ventures, we hope to learn as we grow.  Please follow, join the dialogue, or just watch the changes that happen to us along the way.  

About the Author: Neil Phillips is a founding partner of Team Connections and Director of the DSWA Coach Excellence program.  Get more from Neil on his Direct Selling Notebook , the DSWA Coaching Center.com and Twitter.

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