Apogee Coaching

“The right relationship between prayer and conduct is not that conduct is supremely important and prayer may help it, but that prayer is supremely important and conduct tests it.”

- Archbishop Temple

I frequently find that the best business wisdom isn’t.  That’s because wisdom, regardless of where it originates, tends to have broad application.

In that vein, I was struck a few years back by the insight in this quote by Archbishop Temple, which places the spirit and caliber of our earnest effort over the ends for which we strive.  Shouldn’t we be thinking about business this way?

Read the rest of this article »

“A man who never makes a mistake never makes anything.”

- Herr Hunt, my third grade German teacher

When I was in third grade, my teacher invited a guest instructor, Herr Hunt, to come in for a few weeks and teach us a bit about Germany and the German language.  While I’ve forgotten most everything from that experience, save how to count to twenty in German, there was one comment made by our instructor which has never left me.

Whenever Herr Hunt would see that we were afraid to answer a question, he would say, “A man who never makes a mistake never makes anything.”

Read the rest of this article »

A friend recently forwarded me a post from Bud Caddell’s What Consumes Me blog entitled how to be happy in business – venn diagram.  If you are in business and you are committed to BOTH your personal satisfaction and your business success (and why wouldn’t you be?) you owe it to yourself to take a look at this brief post.

In it Bud shares a simple, but very insightful venn diagram that shows the overlaps between your business strengths (What We Do Well), satisfaction (What We Want To Do) and ability to earn (What We Can Be Paid To Do).  From the diagram, we can infer that if you hit the trifecta (meet all three criteria) – Hooray!  You’ve found the formula for business happiness – getting paid to do what you are both passionate about and excel at.  If, instead, you are only firing on two of these cylinders, Bud provides succinct advice on how to increase your happiness.

Read the rest of this article »

In his recent article, Twitter A Dead End Investment For Small Business, Robert Bacal warns that unless you are doing it for fun, small business owners should not invest time in Twitter and expect business results.  Though I’ve only been experimenting with Twitter for business the last couple of weeks, what I have seen so far tends to support many of Mr. Bacal’s conclusions.  Having said that, I’m not convinced we should write Twitter off completely.

Read the rest of this article »

This weekend, I was spending time with a close friend and business owner.  We were discussing her recent business challenges and opportunities and she was updating me on her application to participate in the 8(a) Business Development (BD) Program.  For those of you who are not familiar, the 8(s) BD Program is the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) program is designed to help small disadvantaged business owners compete and access the federal procurement market.  So, I thought it might help my readers to understand a little more about the opportunities presented by 8(a).

Read the rest of this article »

In a recent (Jun 19, 2009) interview with Fortune, Google CEO Eric Schmidt had this to say about coaching and everybody’s need for a coach:
Read the rest of this article »

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.”

- Henry David Thoreau

After reading Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we realize that most challenges and opportunities can be viewed in terms of alignment.   So, how can we take advantage of this realization?
Read the rest of this article »

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.”

- Jack Kinder

In Part 1 of this series, we started to explore the idea that many of our challenges and opportunities could be viewed in terms of alignment, or a lack thereof.  In this article, we’ll delve in a little more and introduce the concept of an alignment framework.

Read the rest of this article »

“It can be really offputting when you lose your way somehow.”

- Winnie the Pooh

Not to get too philosophical but most of our difficulties, in businesses and, more broadly, in life are firmly rooted in one thing — misalignment.  This is not a new idea.  In fact, many philosophies and belief systems explore this concept under one guise or another.  You may have encountered phrases like true seeing, being awake and, even, in the zone.  Ultimately, these revolve around aligning ourselves with the realities of our environment.  When we do, we are not guaranteed success but we can increase our effectiveness and, maybe more importantly, our peace of mind.

Read the rest of this article »