Do you strive to stand out or fit in? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller challenge the myth of equality and reveal why entrepreneurs are hardwired to pursue uniqueness. Learn how comparing yourself to others can hold you back, while focusing on being usefully different fuels impact, happiness, and growth in life and business.

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

• Why developing uniqueness demands a fundamentally different mindset.
• The most effective way to immediately stand out from the crowd.
• How the pursuit of equality traps people in endless competition.
• Which path is right for entrepreneurs, and why.
• The costly mistake of trying to be both unique and equal.

Show Notes:

You can choose to be unique or equal, but never both.

Entrepreneurs succeed by leaning in to their unique skills, not by blending in.

The question of whether to be equal to others or to be unique often arises early in life.

Focusing on being useful, not simply “fitting in,” sets you apart and attracts opportunities.

Being equal and being unique represent fundamentally different psychological and emotional worlds, and your thoughts and mindset will shift depending on which you pursue.

Unique individuals are self-referential, while equal-focused people constantly compare themselves to others.

Someone who focuses only on uniqueness creates their own games.

Anytime you create something new, it disrupts the status quo.

Fairness means consistent rules, not identical outcomes for everyone.

The best collaborations happen among unique individuals playing by shared rules.

Entrepreneurs will only be successful to the degree that their uniqueness is seen as increasingly useful to other people.

Resources:

The End of Average by Todd Rose

Unique Ability®

Bill Of Rights Economy by Dan Sullivan

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

Worried about competitors copying your ideas? Dan Sullivan reveals why context—not just content—makes your thinking truly unique. Learn how The 10x Mind Expander® tool helps entrepreneurs reframe their past successes as springboards for growth, why AI is creating exciting new contexts for creativity, and how to protect your best ideas while staying ahead of the curve.

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

• How adding context helps you understand yourself as an achieving entrepreneur.
• Why stealing content won’t work for you.
• The best way for creative thinkers to partner with AI.
• Simple ways to add valuable context to content.

Show Notes:

For 36 years, Strategic Coach® has delivered new thinking tools every quarter.

AI isn’t just a tool—it’s a game-changing context for how we create and communicate.

A 10x revenue goal feels impossible until you realize that you’ve already done it before.

Past growth holds the clues—look back to see how you’ve already achieved 10x jumps.

To grow 10x again, simplify. Keep what works and focus on the few key changes needed.

You likely have 50% of what you need for your next 10x leap—your experience proves it.

Entrepreneurs accumulate a lot of content (experiences, data) without necessarily knowing what it means.

Context transforms content—it’s the difference between “what happened” and “why it matters.”

Strategic Coach thinking tools give brand new context to content, helping entrepreneurs reframe their past to unlock their future potential.

Recognizing how you made a previous jump allows you to see content differently.

You have to be willing to go through fear, uncertainty, and discomfort to get to a new level of normal.

Content can be stolen, but it falls flat without context around it.

Resources:

The 10x Mind Expander by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

Perplexity

Do you embrace the fear that comes with chasing bigger goals, or do you let it hold you back? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explore why excitement and fear are inseparable for ambitious entrepreneurs—and how reframing fear as fuel, not a foe, is the key to lifelong growth and fulfillment.

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

• The specific types of fear entrepreneurs experience when pursuing big goals.
• How Dan experiences both fear and excitement with a current project.
• The two things that entrepreneurs can do with their fear.
• Why status-seeking entrepreneurs eventually lose their ambition.
• The cost of eliminating fear from your future.

Show Notes:

Growth is like a coin with two sides: excitement and fear.

Entrepreneurs need to normalize fear as a regular part of their journey.

Committing to a bigger future goal naturally brings up fear about whether you can achieve it.

Real growth requires pursuing something more exciting—and more challenging—than what you’ve done before.

Many people lose their ambition because they’re stopped by the fear that comes with it.

Entrepreneurs are driven to ensure their future is bigger than their past.

Status-seeking entrepreneurs focus on external markers of success while growth-oriented entrepreneurs measure success internally, by their own progress.

It takes courage for entrepreneurs to keep moving.

Expect failure along the way—it's part of the growth process.

For growth-minded entrepreneurs, fear isn’t a necessary evil; it’s a necessary resource.

Stopping growth means losing the new capabilities that come with it.

When you stop growing, you may feel uneasy about others who continue to grow.

For status-seekers, ambition is a destination; for growth-seekers, it’s a capability to develop.

Growth-oriented entrepreneurs compare themselves only to who they used to be, not to others.

Resources:

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

Just because someone excels in their role doesn’t mean they should interview new hires—especially if they’re a salesperson. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller reveal why great salespeople often make the worst hiring decisions, how to spot the right evaluators for your team, and the mindset shift that separates a persuasive seller from a discerning buyer.

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

• The role of a job seeker in an interview.
• The role that an interviewer should be playing.
• Why Dan isn’t involved in the hiring process at Strategic Coach®.
• A secret ingredient in the Strategic Coach hiring process.
• The powerful question you should ask every prospective customer and team member.

Show Notes:

Salespeople shouldn’t conduct interviews because they’ll treat every interaction like a sale—focused on overcoming objections rather than evaluating fit.

Great salespeople are wired to close deals, which means they’ll prioritize getting a "yes" over finding the right candidate.

A sales-driven interviewer risks hiring the wrong person simply because they couldn’t resist "winning" the interaction.

As the person doing the hiring, you’re the buyer, not the seller.

It’s the job of the applicant to convince you they’re the right fit.

It’s not the interviewer’s job to get the applicant excited about the position.

Your hiring team should be dispassionate evaluators—think poker players, not persuaders.

The best hires are those who sell you on their ability to contribute to your company’s future.

Confidence in hiring comes from being decisive, not from convincing someone to join.

Trust your instincts—if a candidate feels off early on, that feeling rarely improves over time.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Free Zone Frontier by Dan Sullivan

How To Improve Business By Asking Good Questions

Always Be The Buyer by Dan Sullivan

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

Are you holding back, waiting for the “right” decision? In this episode, Shannon Waller and Dan Sullivan reveal why taking action—even imperfect action—is the key to entrepreneurial momentum. Discover how making any decision unlocks feedback, reduces anxiety, and activates your best thinking, while indecision keeps you stuck. Plus, learn practical strategies to overcome perfectionism and move forward.

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

• The importance of making a decision that requires that you take action.
• How indecision leads to more indecision.
• What you sacrifice when you refuse to choose.
• How to get a clear picture of the situation you’re in.

Show Notes:

Taking action, even with imperfect information, is better than staying stuck in indecision.

The problem with making no decision is that you’re not changing the situation that’s paralyzing you.

When you can’t make a decision, the pressure builds on you exponentially, as does the feeling of isolation and disconnection from your team and your goals.

As soon as you start taking action, you get an enormous amount of information about whether it was a right action or a wrong action.

Perfectionism is the enemy of progress.

Humans are best when they’re in motion.

People become unproductive when they’re not making decisions.

You don’t have to make the right decision. You can make a decision, and then make it right.

Clarity and confidence come after you commit, not before.

Decisive entrepreneurs make mistakes, but they also learn and adapt much faster than indecisive ones.

When you’re indecisive, you lose access to your wisdom, experience, and problem-solving abilities.

The act of deciding eliminates alternative options and allows your mind to focus on what matters most.

Protecting your role and saying no to distractions is a by-product of being decisive about your commitments.

The word “decide” literally means to “kill off” alternatives, freeing you from mental clutter and overwhelm.

Resources:

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

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

The Impact Filter™

An entrepreneur for over 35 years, Gary Mottershead is the founder and president of GCP Industrial Products, the largest U.S. importer of industrial sheet rubber, serving customers across North America. In this episode, he shares the highs and lows of his career, as well as his goals as a Program Coach for The Strategic Coach® Program.

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

• What Gary considers to be his most important responsibility.
• How Gary’s entrepreneurial career started with an actual tire fire.
• How he and his team built up their “crisis muscle.”
• Why reinterpreting your past and protecting your present is crucial to entrepreneurial success.
• How Strategic Coach® helps entrepreneurs sharpen their vision.
• Why Gary chose to write a book—and what he learned from the process.
• How entrepreneurs can overcome FOMO.

Show Notes:

If you’re going to bring children into the world, you should look after them.

Having a support system at home is vital to the success of any entrepreneurial family.

Stability in some areas of your life can give you the energy to handle changes in others.

Sometimes, not making a decision is the greater risk.

There are things entrepreneurs feel compelled to do without knowing why.

Trying to be significant before you’re successful is doing things backwards.

The time isn’t up unless you decide it’s up.

The mark of an entrepreneur is not how often you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up.

You’ll handle a situation more calmly if you’ve experienced something similar before.

Being nimble is a mindset.

Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.

You can rewrite your own story, keeping only what’s important.

The future isn’t written yet—which means you can still shape it.

Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle, not just a job.

Without intention and direction, too much information can paralyze you.

The hardest thing for an entrepreneur is being honest with themselves.

You can only help those who want to be helped.

Resources:

Kolbe A™ Index

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nimble Future: Reinterpret Your Past, Protect Your Present, Engage In Your Future by Gary Mottershead

Unique Ability®

Time Management Strategies For Entrepreneurs (Effective Strategies Only)

The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

The Self-Managing Company by Dan Sullivan

Many entrepreneurs use negatives to make a sale. But why sell fear when you can sell opportunity, and why sell pain when you can sell growth? Dan Sullivan reveals why positive messaging attracts the best clients, how ambition fueled by principles keeps you young, and why your community determines your growth. Learn why the most successful entrepreneurs never retire—they just keep reinventing themselves.

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

• How selling is both an intellectual and emotional activity.
• Why fear isn’t something to avoid—but a sign you’re growing.
• The mindset shift that keeps successful entrepreneurs innovating.
• How Strategic Coach® accelerates growth for already successful entrepreneurs.
• The surprising link between ambition, aging, and fulfillment (and how to stay "young" at any stage).

Show Notes:

Most sales pitches use fear—but fear attracts the wrong clients and limits your growth.

Selling has two parts to it: intellectually connecting people to a desirable future result, and

then emotionally engaging them to take action to achieve that future result.

To be effective, a sales pitch has to be both convincing and compelling.

Instead of pitching that you can remove a negative, focus your pitch on amplifying something positive.

You're ambitious because of your passion. You'd like to see your passion have an impact out in the world.

Who you surround yourself with determines your trajectory: growth-oriented people keep you young, while stagnant people age you.

Status entrepreneurs, as opposed to growth entrepreneurs, eventually run out of ambition.

Ambition is driven by strategy. Growth is driven by principles.

Your principles are your way of being.

The moment you retire from fear, you also retire from excitement.

Fear and pain go together, as do opportunity and growth.

The biggest thing you're putting at risk when you're growing is your own past.

In the Strategic Coach community, you're not the exception—you're the norm.

Resources:

10xTalk Podcast with Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish

Anything And Everything Podcast with Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

The Mindset Scorecard by Dan Sullivan

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

Growing Great Leadership by Dan Sullivan

What if the solutions you’ve already created could generate value for decades—without more of your time? In this episode, Dan Sullivan reveals how packaging, naming, and protecting your ideas transforms them into scalable intellectual property. Learn why your “second company” (your multiplier) could soon be worth more than your entire business—and how to make it happen.

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

• How to make your solutions valuable by protecting them through intellectual property law.
• The thinking tool that lets you find the right person for the right role.
• How you can easily turn your ideas into intellectual property.
• The importance of sticking to your business model.
• How you can franchise your ideas.
• The future of Strategic Coach® over the next 20 years.

Show Notes:

Your first company, your R&D company, creates solutions for people.

Your second company, your multiplier company, packages your solutions as your intellectual property.

If you record, package, and name a solution you’ve created, it will have massive ongoing value.

Before you put your ideas out into the world, you must protect them.

Boredom with your own solutions is a hidden risk—document them before you move on to the next idea.

The value of Strategic Coach’s patents will soon surpass 55 years of coaching revenue—proof that IP compounds value.

Protecting your creativity isn’t just a multiplier; it’s an accelerator of long-term wealth.

A two-company structure makes you immune to market chaos because you control the value of your ideas.

Your biggest breakthroughs will come from technology multiplied by teamwork, not from grinding harder.

The same business model that built your success can scale infinitely—if you focus on IP, not just execution.

Resources:

Unique Process Advisors by Dan Sullivan

Instant IP

Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

Unique Ability®

Perplexity

This Tool Will Help You Make Sense Of The Past AND Take Charge Of Your Future

Everything Is Created Backward by Dan Sullivan

Extraordinary Impact Filter by Dan Sullivan

Growing Great Leadership by Dan Sullivan

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan