It’s scary, but it’s so wonderful to be doing what feels to be such useful activity.

It’s interesting how this switch happened inside my head.  Before Christmas, I had all kinds of great excuses for not making the leap:

• “I’m still investing in my professional development.”
• “My plans aren’t clear yet.”
• “People are going to be off on vacation.”

All true, of course, but I knew that the fundamental issue was that they were stalling techniques to give myself an “out” for not moving to action.

What changed since New Year’s is that I decided to announce to my supporters and coaches (so wonderful to be able to call upon several!) that I wanted to work on switching from planning into action.  After each conversation, I came away with some concrete actions to take - that I was motivated to work on.  That last part is key, because it’s what helps me to get over my fears and inertia.

This is part of the magic of coaching – that the client creates and owns the action items, it’s not about the coach giving the client things to do.  Therefore, the client is motivated to follow through, and the coach can help close the loop of accountability and celebration.

I might also mention that I had my first evaluation as a coach this week – an expert listened in while I coached a colleague for half an hour, then gave a verbal and written evaluation of what I had done.

Boy, that was scary.

But in the end, my fears were much larger than the reality.  I got some wonderful and supportive feedback, and had the chance to really jump in and coach at my absolute best.  I’m much less scared about the second evaluation in a couple of weeks.

Are you scared to jump in and actually do what you know you need to do?  Have courage, my friend!

Read more on my Partnering in Possibilities blog »

Here’s the idea:  People will formulate ideas about who you are and why you might be valuable to know (or employ).  What happens if you drive that intentionally, rather than just have it happen at random?

I’ve been focusing on this idea myself for about five years now.  Actually, now that I think about it, there’s been three distinct contexts that I was working on:

• As a highly experienced strategic planner in the corporate environment;
• As a leader of coaching inside and outside my previous employer; and
• As a spiritual leader at my church.

No, I didn’t develop a fancy logo or great marketing brochure, I didn’t take out ads on TV.  Instead, I became extremely clear on who I wanted to be in each of these contexts, and developed strategies for building up an image consistent with the perception I wanted to give.  For example, I volunteered for a number of roles in leading coaching in the community and within my employer, and made sure that people knew my name in connection with that.

This blog, actually, is an outgrowth of that brand-building exercise, but reaching out to a much broader audience.

This “brand” had huge value for me in that company, and gives me great value for building my new business.  I have a whole bunch of people who know me and their image tends to be positive.  A lot of people are very generous with their help.

Do you have continuing strategies that you use for building your “brand image” to certain people, driven by a particular goal?

Fortunately, this isn’t a totally new experience for me, so I have some aids to help me navigate through this swamp.

The most important thing I do, first, is to admit that I have a big gap in my knowledge and abilities.  Trying to fake it isn’t going to work.  So next is to line up resources that I have available to me:

• Books, websites, and other static resources
• Other coaches I know who appear to have worked past this stage
• Communities that I can connect to where I can learn from other experts

I started organizing my work by going to a class at the local Small Business Development Center and writing down my thoughts in my business plan.  Even though it’s sketchy, it’s helping me to get a feel for how large this area is.

More on a whim than anything else, I’ve started reading a book on B2B marketing.  I love reading, but oddly enough, I seem to learn more from discussions with people.  So I’ve started making a number of contacts with others who can share their expertise with me.  I also went to a couple of networking meetings last week, one of which was for small business owners in the area.

But finally, in the end, I have to put some trust in myself to just get started.  Learning and planning are great, but I need to move into DOING marketing and sales.  That’s what I’ll be focusing on this week.

Why is it so difficult?

I think it’s because I know I’ll have to live with this name for a long time.  In a way, I’m getting “married” to the name and don’t want to make the wrong choice.  And there’s a number of relatively vague criteria for this, a mixture of logical and emotional, thinking and feeling, even with legal ramifications thrown in.  That’s not unlike many big choices that we’re faced with, on the job or In Real Life.

In the end, the way I moved to a decision was:

• I set a deadline for myself.  An arbitrary choice, really, but I decided that yesterday was the day to finally get it done.
• I gathered all my data together, in my head and on paper.  That way I could feel like I had all the requirements and possibilities in hand.
• I created some space.  My wife and I had a wonderful trip to the mountains yesterday and we had a nice relaxed chat about this.  I had no other meetings scheduled, no other distractions.
• I balanced my head and my heart.  After all, this needs to be a name that meets all the logical requirements, but also one that I can feel good growing into.  That’s very much an emotional choice.

My final decision?  Possibilities Partnership LLC.  No, it’s not stunningly clever, but I didn’t want that.  This name is built on the fundamental philosophy of working in partnership with my customers to build their best future based on the possibilities which exist.  I’ll be moving my coaching style away from focusing on fixing problems, toward creating and designing.  It helped that I had captured some of these ideas in my business planning, but the name also helps me to make them more concrete.

And yes, being a technoid, I immediately went out and grabbed the www.PossibilitiesPartnership.com website URL.  That in fact was a primary criteria for the name – so many other two-word combinations are already taken by legitimate companies and less savory URL parkers.

How do you get yourself through tough decisions?

The big change, I think, is moving from a world of scarcity (hard to find good business strategy/operations jobs) to a world of abundance.  It’s now my challenge to build my future business based on all the need and opportunity that I perceive.

Another huge shift is the kind of support that I’m getting.  When you’re looking for a job, people:

• sympathize and empathize,
• usually don’t have much help for actually finding an open position, and
• are often more than willing to share their pessimism and scare stories.

On the other hand, when I talk about the creation of a new business, most people:

• help build my confidence in my own abilities,
• are genuinely interested to find out more, and
• are generous with ideas, pointers, and encouragement.

It certainly is scary to move away from a “comfortable” model to one that I’ve never directly experienced before.  I’ve observed, though, for many years, as my brother and friends have built their own businesses.  I hope, and believe, that I’ve learned enough to get going.  I’ve started my business plan and have been talking with a great number of coaches, coaching businesses, and coaching schools.  Possibilities are opening up and are very encouraging.

Here’s what I’m focusing on now, internally and externally:

• Keeping my optimism, fortitude, and focus;
• Creating a solid business plan so that I’m really clear on what I’m doing;
• Figuring out who my most important partners are going to be to get this off the ground;
• Getting lots of help and advice of people who are familiar with this space; and
• Being patient – I’m building a long term business, even if the next year is rather rocky.

Building a business isn’t for everyone, but I truly believe that this is the right decision for me at this point in my life.  This is how I’ll make my best contribution to the world, that part of me which has been aching to break out for the last decade.