Steve Page Coach

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We talk a lot about goals in coaching and I always support having a goal you're working towards; it keeps you focussed, and gives you purpose and direction. We're midway through 2022 and now is a great time to reflect on any goals you set at the beginning of the year. If you didn't set goals in January, then now is a great time to plan for the rest of the year.

When you're picking your goals remember to:

👉make sure they're exciting and enticing

👉make your goal compelling

👉work out what you want & why.

👉work out how much you want it

So, what is coaching?






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This week I'm all about 'integration'. Integration is about getting real on the evidence of 'what is', accepting that evidence is true and integrating your new reality as your new baseline.

Let's take an example. You start your own business and you have a fancy business plan and your expectations are realistic and, likely, on the low side.

If you're first 6 months, after you've set up as CEO of your own thing, you're grafting hard and bringing home the money. The first year is a roller coaster - some months up, some months down (so always take a quarterly view) but when you average it out you're doing great and bringing home 30K a month.

Rolling into year two, you notice you're feeling burned out, taking on too many hours, and beginning to resent the work that you love - suddenly you start to hate your passion! You're probably taking every piece of work that comes you're way, working round the clock squeezing in extra hours for an extra dollar, and charging the same prices you started with and if it has any money attached - you'll take it.

You find yourself in a scarcity mindset and your expectation is still stuck in a 'start-up' headspace.

What's happening here is your brain hasn't integrated your new reality - which is you now know how to make 30K per month, you now have the formula on how to make this money consistently, you have the evidence and so you need to spend a bit of time acknowledging this, to trust yourself that you can rinse and repeat this and begin integrating it as your new normal and build more revenue on top. If you don't your default is to reset back to zero where you were starting out and you have to take everything which comes your way.

Unless you reset your expectations you're trapped in your same old patterns and stories. Only when you integrate can you create a platform to grow and scale from.

Where in your life would it be really cool to integrate and totally reset your expectations of what's possible?

What's one thing that was a game-changer in setting up my own business? Recruiting my OBM.

This week's tip - it's onboarding time. You've done the heavy lifting and found your ideal OBM and they should have their own process in terms of getting you started. This start-up time is when you plan to over-communicate, to spend more time than you think you need agreeing on how things might work and talking.

It helps to start small and specific with the tasks that you begin to hand over and fight to avoid your inner urge to offload the entire list of pain that you've been carrying and try to dump the whole thing on you're fresh-faced OBM.

For me it was my Instagram content and FB interface - that was the only thing I wanted to work on - this is the time to build up trust with each other and learn how to communicate.

Start with putting in place the simple systems that you can then build on - a shared drive on google with a simple file structure, a platform to share content on (we use Slack), and a structure with a timeline to begin to work on - we have a simple Excel content calendar which has been a lifesaver.

Start small, start simple, and start talking. It might be a revolutionary release overnight - or it might take a bit of time to get into your groove. Stick with it - it is worth the effort.

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A big part of what I do works one-to-one with senior leaders, supporting them as their 'sounding board'.

They work with me because when you're at the top of the organisation, it can be lonely, and sometimes, especially when you are a new kid on the block, it can be a bit disorientating navigating the important from the urgent.

We create 'CEO time' at least twice per month (even when you're not the actual CEO, you're still CEO of your thing!), 'CEO time' is totally focussed on what's important, totally focused on seeing the wood and not the trees, focussed on objectivity, being impartial and 100% focussed on them as a leader and their business impact.

CEO time is a place where you voice out thoughts, ideas and challenges and actually create real clarity on your next move. Usually the move you've been subconsciously avoiding and leaving on the 'too big, too difficult' pile.

Blocking out 2-3 hours a month exclusively as 'CEO' time where you get to think actively with a partner creates massive value for CEOs and their businesses.

It's totally normal to get bogged down in the day-to-day and distract ourselves from the important with the urgent. CEO time dedicates energy to consciously focus on the important, to work 'on' and not 'in' the business. Doing this, only for a couple of hours a month, moves the needle for these leaders.

It's a practice that I have in my own business, creating an hour every week for myself to step back and work out what working smart actually means; working out where is the biggest bang for my buck and where should my focus go this week.

A top tip that I find really helpful is asking myself the question ' what does my business need today' - simple but effective in prioritising the important over the urgent every time.






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Why am on social media? It's simple - social media creates relationships.

My business success is built 100% on relationships and all that stuff about sales and marketing all boils down to building and investing in relationships. I don't subscribe to the hard sell model - the influencing, the unique proposition or targetting needs - (Just get me! Blowing 50 years of marketing theory out the window!) - I'm sure all that theory is valid if you're selling soap or aftershave, but I'm not.

What works is investing in relationships. What works is offering ideas, time or connections to help other people move forward, without attachment. And that's key - if I make it conditional that if you take my idea then you 'owe' me then that comes across in our relationship (you know that feeling you get when that anonymous call comes in and you hear cheery anonymous Greg say, Hi Steve, it's such a lovely day, I'm from Blacktree investments and I am genuinely interested in helping you sort out your UK pension....yeah, right). So my intention has to be straight and even though I may not say the words, if I'm holding the intention 'I need you to 'PLEASE buy my coaching' then it's totally picked up by the other person and they run a full mile in the opposite direction.

So, my intention is to be really open and my intention is to support people moving forward in what THEY're wanting to do in their lives. If I can help on that journey then that's awesome, if I can help enough that they trust me and are interested to work with me then that's brilliant. And it sounds 'oh so altruistic and 'hippy dippy' then you need to know it works and has enabled me to build the business that I run, earning way more than I ever earned in a big corporate role and doing work that I love - and so, for me, it's gold!