Can you spot entrepreneurial traits in yourself or in your children? In this episode, Dan Sullivan reveals the telltale signs of a true entrepreneur, from early money-making initiatives to a deep craving for freedom. Learn why credentials pale in comparison to creative shortcuts and why results (not methods) are what set entrepreneurs apart in every stage of life and business.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How the entrepreneurial spirit and mindset shows up in children.
• Why entrepreneurs can’t work for someone else.
• How entrepreneurs’ priorities set them apart from most people.
• How entrepreneurs approach education with a unique perspective.

Show Notes:

Many entrepreneurs show entrepreneurial instincts as early as age 10 or even younger.

A key early sign is wanting to control your own money-making, even before adulthood.

Entrepreneurs often find working for others unfulfilling once they realize their earning potential is directly tied to their ambitions.

The money an entrepreneur makes is just a function of their ambitions, skills, and usefulness.

There’s no single personality type or special skill that makes someone an entrepreneur.

Freedom is always more important to entrepreneurs than security.

The true reward for entrepreneurism isn’t money itself but the freedom it provides.

It’s commonly believed that advanced degrees or credentials are needed for business, but many entrepreneurs prove otherwise.

Entrepreneurs are always creating shortcuts for themselves and getting paid for creating shortcuts for others.

Entrepreneurs live in a world where the only thing that matters is results, not the methods used to achieve them.

Resources:

The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

Kolbe A™ Index

Do you see adversity as fuel for your biggest ambitions or as an obstacle to overcome? In this episode, Jacob Emery reveals how authentic community, powerful partnerships, and daily habits transformed his journey from chaos to high achievement. Discover how Strategic Coach® sparked his shift from misfit to visionary—so you can unlock your own greatness too.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Jacob moved from chaos to clarity.
• Jacob’s challenges growing up and overcoming not fitting in.
• How Strategic Coach helped Jacob merge his two passions.
• Why Strategic Coach attracts entrepreneurs with a growth mindset.
• How Strategic Coach helps build profound confidence.
• The ingredients of a great partnership.

Show Notes:

Great entrepreneurs embrace their misfit qualities to stand out and succeed.

At Strategic Coach, you’re free to be your whole self—authenticity comes first.

Everyone at Strategic Coach is open, honest, and genuinely committed to growth.

Entrepreneurs in The Strategic Coach® Program don’t fit into standard boxes; they create their own path.

You have the power to change your environment.

You can expedite your journey and that of your team members through partnership.

Sometimes, a single win can reshape who you are and what you believe is possible.

Achieving a big goal often reveals an even greater level to aspire to.

When facing a new project, focus on finding the person who would excel at—and truly enjoy—doing it rather than worrying about how to do it yourself.

When you understand what a perfect day looks like, then you understand what you actually want out of life.

Whatever you focus on, positive or negative, will grow.

Strategic Coach allows you to see exactly where you are in your entrepreneurial journey.

Your journey speeds up when you make the most of teamwork.

Living with intention, gratitude, and daily standards builds lasting momentum.

Resources:

The Iron & Infrastructure Podcast

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Kolbe A™ Index

The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

The Entrepreneur's Guide To Time Management

Thinking About Your Thinking by Dan Sullivan

The Impact Filter™

More about Jacob Emery

What separates entrepreneurs who collapse under pressure from those who come back stronger? Sasha Tripp—a real estate entrepreneur who survived financial disaster, market crashes, and personal crises—shares how she transformed adversity into her greatest breakthrough. Discover the mindset shifts that helped her lead with resilience and rebuild her business, and how Strategic Coach® gave her the tools to turn chaos into clarity.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• What made Sasha realize that she had to either improve her skill set or get into sales.
• Why the sky’s the limit in real estate if you have the right work ethic.
• Why Sasha thinks she might never be employable again.
• How Sasha’s entrepreneurial path and her Strategic Coach journey have always overlapped.
• The hardest thing Sasha has ever had to go through.

Show Notes:

True entrepreneurship is tested in the valleys, not just the peaks.

You can’t tell if someone's a really great entrepreneur in the best of times because they have a lot of supports in place.

The 4 C’s Formula®—Commitment, Courage, Capability, and Confidence—is the foundation of overcoming any challenge.

It requires courage and commitment to gain new capabilities and confidence.

Confidence feels good. Courage feels lousy.

If there are going to be problems in the marketplace, residential real estate is where it shows up first.

When everything falls apart, your mindset determines whether you rebuild or retreat.

Entrepreneurship isn’t about avoiding risk; it’s about managing fear while moving forward.

Entrepreneurs have the freedom to pivot and change when it makes the most sense to do so.

If you don’t have the answer yet, it might be that you haven’t thought of the right question.

Strategic Coach isn’t about tactics; it’s about training yourself to ask better questions.

Strategic Coach is a community of unbiased people you can talk to about your challenges.

You can want what you want. You don’t have to justify it.

Your business should fit your life, not the other way around.

The fastest way to grow isn’t working harder, it’s thinking differently.

Resources:

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The Positive Focus®

Business coach Dan Sullivan and marketing and advertising geniuses Joe Polish, Dean Jackson, and Mark Young have all been friends and business colleagues for years. Now, they’re teaming up as the Super Partners for a very special podcast episode where they talk about what marketing really means and provide examples of elegant ideas that entrepreneurs can use to better engage their audiences.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Solutions that mean no more cold calls or door-to-door sales.
• The purpose of advertising.
• How advertising can be used to help people.
• The difference between marketing and sales.
• Why selling has gotten a bad name.
• What’s changed since Dan founded The Strategic Coach® Program 35 years ago.
• Why direct mail is still the greatest form of marketing in the world.

Show Notes:

Everyone who has a business is going to have to do marketing and selling.

One elegant idea is worth more than 1,000 semi-good ideas.

Perfect has become the enemy of good.

Anything you put in front of somebody is marketing.

Only the hungriest fish snap at the crappiest bait.

Once you figure out marketing, it's the ultimate leverage.

Marketing is the aggregate of all the steps you take to go from somebody not knowing you all the way to them being engaged in a relationship with you.

Once you figure out a marketing algorithm, it works again and again.

You can create control in your future if you learn how to put a message out there that causes people to want to give you money.

There are businesses that die of starvation, and there are businesses that die of indigestion.

The average person receives between 5,000 and 24,000 advertising messages daily.

Part of sales is just connecting with someone.

People don't buy from you because they understand what you do. People buy from you because they feel understood.

Dan’s definition of selling is getting someone intellectually engaged in a future result that's good for them and getting them to emotionally commit to take action to achieve that result.

Resources:

I Love Marketing podcast

10xTalk podcast

American Happiness podcast

Cloudlandia podcast

HYPNO-TI$ING by Mark Young

Video: “Is Selling Evil?” by Joe Polish

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy

The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy

10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Ben Hardy

Strategic Coach®

Mark Young

Jekyll + Hyde Labs

Dean Jackson

The 8 Profit Activators

Joe Polish

Genius Recovery

What’s Your Cleator?

What if taking more time off could actually grow your business? Todd Ellis, a financial advisor and Strategic Coach® veteran, shares how a 15-day sailing voyage—completely unplugged—taught him the power of taking time off. Discover why stepping away to develop new skills builds confidence, strengthens your team, and fuels unexpected growth. The secret? A Self-Managing Company® that thrives when you disconnect.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Todd discovered his passion for financial services—and why helping people drives his business.
• The surprising ways Todd’s company creates real impact for clients and team members.
• Why taking true time off accelerates success.
• The importance of making sure you have the capacity to handle a situation (before you’re in it).
• How Strategic Coach helps entrepreneurs and their companies grow.

Show Notes:

The more free time you take, the more your income will grow.

Taking free time flies in the face of workaholic culture, where burnout is worn as a badge of honor.

Gaining a new capability gives you a new sense of confidence.

To take time off, you must have a company that can develop and grow while you’re away.

Once you have your own company, you get to decide how you’re going to serve the public.

Many people measure their success by how many clients they have, but having fewer clients allows you to really invest in yourself.

Taking a break from technology allows you to be with your own thoughts and experience what’s around you.

A Free Day™ is a 24-hour period that's uninterrupted by any work-related activities.

When you step inside Strategic Coach, you get to be surrounded by like-minded entrepreneurs who are eager to support your growth.

Entrepreneurs share common issues, but every entrepreneur is unique.

Resources:

How Free Days Keep You On Your Side Of “The Line”

What Is A Self-Managing Company®?

Unique Ability®

What if the traits you’ve been told are disadvantages are actually your “unfair” advantages? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and engineer-turned-ADHD-advocate André Brisson reveal how entrepreneurs thrive by rewriting the rules—not following them. Learn why your unique way of thinking is your greatest asset and how to build a business (and life) that rewards it.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why entrepreneurs feel like misfits in traditional learning environments.
• The program that helps high-achieving ADHD entrepreneurs understand themselves better.
• The surprising truth about who The Strategic Coach® Program was designed for.
• Why Strategic Coach® members instantly “get” each other (and how this community transforms isolation into confidence).
• How André built an engineering firm that breaks industry norms.
• How André’s ADHD has fueled his biggest challenges—and his biggest wins.
• The #1 insight André learned in 14 years at Strategic Coach.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs are shortcut creators—your ability to bypass inefficiencies is what makes you invaluable.

The systems that frustrate you exist because most people prioritize rules over results.

The real trick for entrepreneurs is to break the rules and get paid for the shortcuts they create.

Everything that works in your life is the result of having created a new solution for yourself. If things don’t work, it’s because you're trying to fit into someone else’s system.

What you do and the way you do it is the center of your life, and you can keep expanding that throughout your entire career.

Your Unique Ability® isn’t just what you’re good at—it’s what energizes you while delivering exponential value.

Once you decide that the way you do something is the right way for you to do it, you’ll find the customers and clients who appreciate that.

If you’ve been trained to do things a certain way, you might get stuck in that way of solving problems.

As long as you’re continually hitting a new Ceiling of Complexity™, you know you’re growing.

Freeing up your time to work at a higher level is a lot of fun.

Underutilized and overutilized strengths are actually weaknesses.

Resources:

The Impulsive Thinker™

Kolbe A™ Index

CliftonStrengths®

PRINT®

Unique Ability®

Do you struggle with scaling your business because you’re still doing everything yourself? In this episode, healthcare entrepreneur Nicole Serena shares how she shifted from solopreneur to CEO by implementing Strategic Coach® lessons—delegating to experts, focusing on her unique skills, and adopting an abundance mindset—and how she 10x’d her business without burning out or sacrificing innovation.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why the healthcare system is under unprecedent pressure—and where the biggest gaps exist for entrepreneurs.
• The critical mindset shift that all entrepreneurs must make if they want to grow.
• Why trying to do everything yourself is the fastest path to burnout (and how to avoid it).
• Why business coaching should be viewed as an investment, not a cost.
• Why Nicole became an entrepreneur in the healthcare industry.
• The mindset change that helped Nicole scale her business without sacrificing her sanity.
• How to find the right person for every role.
• Why the healthcare system needs innovative problem solvers.
• The limitless growth potential in healthcare.

Show Notes:

AI has revolutionized healthcare, delivering results in minutes instead of months.

Strategic Coach teaches entrepreneurs to focus on their strengths and build teams for the rest.

Doctors can’t compete with patients who self-educate via social media.

Healthcare is largely a disease-management industry, not a wellness system.

Canada’s healthcare system is fragile—but also ripe for innovation.

Entrepreneurship can be isolating without the right peer support.

If you’re busy trying to be an expert at everything, you may miss out on critical opportunities.

Delegation frees up mental space for creativity and strategy.

It’s important to unplug and recharge so that you can be there for your clients, your team, and your community.

Your Unique Ability® is your superpower—what only you can do exceptionally and joyfully.

Leading a team can be scary, especially for first-time entrepreneurs.

Strategic Coach connects entrepreneurs to accelerate learning and growth.

Resources:

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Your Business Is A Theater Production: Your Back Stage Shouldn’t Show On The Front Stage

Unique Ability®

Time Management Strategies For Successful Entrepreneurs (Successful Strategies Only)

Can ADHD be a business advantage? In this episode, Amber Swope shares how embracing her ADHD has fueled her entrepreneurial success, transforming challenges into creative strengths and business opportunities. Listen now to discover how leveraging your unique gifts can revolutionize your approach to entrepreneurship and unlock new paths to success!

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Amber is sharing her ongoing ADHD journey with others.
• The circumstances that led Amber to become an entrepreneur.
• Steps to identify whether you have ADHD or another neurodivergent condition.
• Insights into how Strategic Coach® thinking tools may relate to Dan Sullivan's own experiences with ADD.

Show Notes:

Different people experience ADHD differently.

Nearly half of Strategic Coach members have ADHD.

ADHD provides a unique perspective on complex situations.

It’s unrealistic to be good at everything (and a waste of energy to try).

It might be that no matter how hard you try, you’ll never be successful at certain activities. (And that’s okay.)

Once you understand your ADHD, a world of possibilities opens up to you.

If you feel like a failure, it might simply mean you're engaging in activities your brain isn't wired for.

It’s not enough to know something. You have to share it.

When everyone’s on the same page, everyone has a better experience.

For some people with ADHD, it can be a struggle to do things that other people find easy.

Adults with ADHD are 60% more likely to be fired.

Once you know you have ADHD, you can stop spending energy masking it and start embracing your uniqueness.

You create more opportunities when you empower yourself.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Kolbe A™ Index

Time Management Strategies For Entrepreneurs (Effective Strategies Only)