Celebrating Eight Years A Hippo

As a reformed social media abuser, I have significantly reduced my need to check my very few platforms to view who sees me, likes me, even loves me.  Now, I only look once or twice a month to see the activity taking place in my welcomed absence.

Last week, however, all of these notifications kept banging into me.  The little number in the upper corner of the app kept growing and growing.  Fast forward to the end of the week and I decide to take a peek. Lo and behold, people were commenting on my work anniversary for Soul Patch Hippo: Success Coaching.  Eight years.  EIGHT!  Is there a ‘Y’ at the end of that number? (Maybe it’s my age I’m thinking about…) If it wasn’t for all of you – my friends, family, colleagues, and most importantly, clients – I might’ve missed this auspicious occasion.

What a ride so far.  From corporate warrior to entrepreneur and back, eventually stumbling on to coaching via a friend and co-worker who encouraged me to meet a coach for a project I was putting together for the firm where I worked. Even though I have two old friends who are coaches, I had never really investigated what they did or saw the impact they made for the good of others.  Then I rang up this coach, a friend of my friend and colleague, and met him for the first time.  

To say he was passionate about his craft was an understatement.  He used language I almost didn’t understand. I’m thinking, “This is English we are using, yes?”  I found it all incredibly interesting as I had been searching for a new way of communicating with financial clients. I thought the way we conducted ideas and concepts in an effort to acquire investment clientele was archaic, a conversation that was literally 150+ years old.  

I then organized a weekend workshop where, as I listened to this leadership coach, I was fascinated by the positioning and perspectives he shared.  Afterwards, while we were debriefing, he said, “You need to go to a coaching class.”  He pointed me to several highly respected programs and I did the due diligence around which one was right for me.  I proposed the idea to my principal at the firm who was less than enthusiastic about the idea in basically every way.  Regardless, I signed myself up and went to see if this was a platform that would both benefit the firm’s growth and more importantly, benefit our clients and prospective clients.  

Wow!  I was hooked. I spent a three-day weekend – investing my own dough – learning the fundamentals of coaching at Co-Active Training Institute (fka Coaches Training Institute).  While I really didn’t understand anything, as someone who prided themselves on being a very curious and clever sales professional, what I did realize was that I operated in a very superficial way.  Even after being dismissed yet again from my boss, I decided to proceed with the next weekend event that happened to be in my hometown the following month.    Six months later, I had completed all five classes in preparation for the certification journey, which would require written and oral exams.  I was going to be a certified coach!  

My coaching friend and mentor also suggested I enroll in another accredited coaching certification with the late great Dr. Judith Glaser of Conversational Intelligence aka CIQ. So, now in a few short months I found myself immersed in not one but two certifications.  (Thanks David…) Since I was still working my regular full-time job, weekends and evenings were devoted to the required work to obtain certification.  It was a year of finding clients both paying and free, coaching them, recording them (with their permission of course), working with other coaching candidates around the world, supervision of my coaching, reading, and projects.

As I approached completion of these initial credential acquisitions, I started letting people know what I had been up to all this time.  The responses were generally favorable: You will be great at this!  I see this for you!  Exciting!  Not surprisingly, after being canned by my firm which was inevitable, I decided to hang out my coaching shingle instead of getting yet another corporate warrior role. 

Sounds good! And, then, where did everyone go?  Turns out all those attaboys did not equate to business, agreements and of course, revenue!  I wrote to friends and family sharing what I had done and, fortunately, that got things rolling.  I signed two clients, one solo private and the other a corporate client that has turned into my longest coaching relationship.  The rest as they say is histoire!

Of course, I wouldn’t be here without the important people in my life who guided and encouraged me to take this important next step in my life’s journey. Thank you  David Taylor-Klaus (DTK!), David Liddell, David Goldsmith, the late David Peterson (are you seeing a pattern here?) and the late Dr. Judith Glaser.  Also, the many coaches who traveled with me through time and space, either becoming coaches themselves or as well-experienced coaches in programs I attended.  And thank you to the so important clients, past and present, who entrusted me with their challenges and journey to greatness and wherever that journey took them.  Finally and most importantly, to my wife, Debora, who made it all possible by just saying I should do it.  Of course, she also liked the idea of me buying a coin laundry and dry cleaner so there’s that…gotta love a cash business…!  Be big.  Be cool. And above all else, Be Hippo.