Cue Tom Petty's classic hit song from his fabulous Wildflowers' album, Time To Move On.

?

Tom's singing about divorce, but if I were singing the song it'd be about my long-last professional shift. Today, I hope you get some value as I rehearse with you the general angst and execution (or lack) of the past year. As we near the end of it and stare into the face of 2020 it feels right to craft this final chapter of the Grow Great podcast.

I'm hoping you'll stay along for the ride because my intent on continuing to provide high value - in fact, I'm making this change because I want to up my game in bringing you HIGHER value.

For over 4 decades I've been immersed in business. All my activities have been focused on the business of building and growing business. I've spent most of that time leading businesses. And I've loved almost every mile along the journey. But it's time to move on.

No, I'm not leaving business behind, but I am changing direction. More accurately, I'm changing my focus and going singular rather than being as broad as I've been over the past decade.

When I entered the professional services arena a decade ago it was real roll-up-your-sleeves-get-your-hands-dirty consulting work. I was intent on helping business owners shore up operationally. Quite often it involved retooling sales processes, too. It was the under-the-hood stuff that every business requires.

Over time it morphed. Quite organically. It ended up becoming coaching, which I found suited me unlike anything else. I'm ideally wired for it, as I had discovered when I was in my early 20's. I enjoy communication, learning, discovery and my natural curiosity drives me to ask questions seeking understanding. In short, it was right up my ally, suited to my strong suit because it was all about PEOPLE. It was about me doing whatever I could to help people figure it out for themselves. I loved it because everything about it felt right.

There's a character strength assessment that I'm fond of. A buddy - Joe Bacigalupo of AlliancesHub International put me onto it. I knew something of the folks behind it because I had read (years ago) a book entitled, Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman. He's one of the people behind the VIA Survey, the folks leaning hard into character strengths (which differ from talent or skill strengths).

?

That assessment is meaningful because among my core character strengths are things I've long known about myself. Things like forgiveness are big things for me. And easy.

My passion to go deep with people in an effort to serve them has always been strong. It's been growing stronger and stronger over the past decade. I'm naturally bent toward being a person with whom others can feel safe. Confidentiality isn't hard for me. Not judging people or telling them what they "should" do it's either. I'm happy to give people my opinion if they press, but I mostly am geared to asking questions so they can figure out for themselves what is best for them. This is all in the context of business or organizational behavior. So candor is up near the top of things I cherish most.

What I've learned the past 4-5 years is that this is woefully lacking in the world. But not really. Let me explain.

Talk with 10 people and I guarantee if you direct the right questions toward them you'll discover each of the 10 was powerfully impacted by somebody. Likely a number of somebodies. In other words, they leveraged the power of others. We all do it, but most of us don't do it strategically or even tactically. It just happens organically. Or not.

I began to look more closely at the people at the bottom of the achievement pile. People who suffer all sorts of challenges that I have neve...