Through speaking engagements, webinars, coaching, and books, Dave Sanderson helps people understand how to embrace their uncertainty so they ignite opportunity. In this episode, Dave, who was the last passenger on the plane crash known as the “Miracle on the Hudson,” shares how that incident served as a wake-up call that transformed his approach to business—and life.

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

• What it was like on the sinking plane, and why Dave was the final passenger to leave.
• How Dave realized he was only a number to the people at the company he worked for.
• What had previously prevented Dave from starting his own company.
• Why Dave believes that everything happens for a reason.
• What separates successful people from really successful people.
• Why the Strategic Coach® community is so important to entrepreneurs in the Program.

Show Notes:

• Embracing uncertainty can be a powerful catalyst for personal growth and entrepreneurial success.
• Life-altering experiences, like surviving a plane crash, can provide clarity on what truly matters in life and business.
• The four entrepreneurial freedoms—time, money, relationships, and purpose—work together to create a holistic framework for success and fulfillment. All four are necessary for a satisfying entrepreneurial life.
• Your most valuable asset is not your business, but your ability to transform challenges into meaningful opportunities for growth.
• Helping others during challenging times can provide a sense of purpose.
• Self-doubt and fear of failure are common challenges in entrepreneurship, but can be overcome with the right mindset and the support of like-minded people.
• Gratitude is a strategic tool that can reframe challenges and unlock new perspectives in your entrepreneurial journey. It’s the antidote to fear.
• Your purpose is your most powerful differentiator—align your business strategies with your deeper mission to create sustainable, fulfilling success.
• Preparation and having a game plan are essential when facing uncertainty in business and life.
• What’s important isn’t the resources you have, but you how use them.

Resources:

Blog: The Four Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

Book: From Turmoil to Triumph by Dave Sanderson

Tool: The Impact Filter™

The Kolbe A™ Index

Nicholas Schwarz became an entrepreneur because he was lacking the Four Freedoms of Time, Money, Relationship, and Purpose. Now, Nicholas runs a company where he helps his clients expand those Four Freedoms for themselves. In this episode, Nicholas shares how he’s gone from working in a job he didn’t like to becoming a happy entrepreneur.

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

• All the factors that made it difficult for Nicholas to be an employee of another company.
• Why becoming self-employed was unthinkable in his line of business.
• How Nicholas’s “wonderful journey” in The Strategic Coach® Program began.
• What Nicholas defines as “relaxed entrepreneurship.”
• Why, nowadays, Nicholas delegates as much as possible.
• How Nicholas’s company helps when it comes to transgenerational wealth.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs for the sake of freedom.

The real freedom that allows all the other freedoms to happen is being able to control your time.

Strategic Coach® members have the ability to actually arrange their life the way they want it.

The Freedom of Money isn’t the most important freedom.

Risk is always perceived as something negative, while uncertainty gives the possibility of something positive happening.

Sometimes, we stumble on rocks we put down ourselves.

Entrepreneurs who use Strategic Coach tools carve out a lot of time for themselves.

The Strategic Coach community is very helpful both as a sounding board and as an emotional support group.

Being your own boss has pros and cons, but the flexibility is worth it.

What you do as an entrepreneur is sometimes very lonely.

Talking about your entrepreneurial successes and challenges resonates more with someone who’s also gone through the whole process.

Resources:

Article: “The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs”

Unique Ability®

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Article: “What Free Days are, And How To Know When You Need Them”

The Cecily Group

Joe Stolte is an entrepreneur working at the crosshairs of marketing and artificial intelligence. His company, Daily.ai, uses machine learning to help thought leaders and small brands build AI-automated email newsletters. In this episode, he explains how his company supports clients in achieving business success and talks about the business lessons learned from his company’s early days.

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

1. The entrepreneur ideas and entrepreneur motivation Joe showed at a very young age.
2. How Joe’s company finds the best content in the world on any topic clients choose.
3. What it means to have short-term pessimism and long-term optimism.
4. How the AI becomes smarter, making the newsletters better.
5. The change in mentality that’s given Daily.ai an edge.

Show Notes:

When it seems everything out there is negative, what grabs your attention is the stuff that’s positive.

It’s a win-win to partner with people who already have a marketplace of your potential clients.

An entrepreneur doesn’t have to be the one with the idea.

If you focus only on customers that are a good fit for your company, they’ll refer you to other people.

ChatGPT has given people a taste of the exponential power behind machine learning and AI.

If you get your clients their desired outcomes, the outputs don’t really matter.

During tough times, you have to manage your expectations.

You know you always need to get better, even during good times.

Ads almost always get less than 50% conversion.

Anything in excess becomes its opposite.

Links:

The Spark newsletter

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy

The Impact Filter™ tool