A few years ago I switched drycleaners. The one I had been using wrecked several of my very expensive garments. They paid for them but the items were not replaceable.
We all have a tendency to make shit up (stories that don't serve our higher purpose) and create fū (fucked up behaviors, results and experiences that enter the voids in our lives and don't serve our higher profit). An effective support community keeps us out of both kinds of trouble. Here's mine...
I mentioned this to a friend who told me about a new drycleaner in the South West part of Calgary (Sierra Cleaners). The owner is a mechanical engineer who came from India and could not for some reason get his papers to practice in Alberta. So he started the cleaning business with his son. They have the kind of care and precision that someone who has engineering training would have and I trust my stuff with them. Having a great dry cleaner on the team is a great asset and a fabulous stress reliever.
Over the years I have built a great support team, all of whom understand what I am about. I have a mechanic, singing coach, chiropractor, personal trainer, massage therapist, physiotherapist, golf coach, chef (who works for Brett Wilson but feeds me everyday), climbing guide and ski guide who all work together as a system to keep me up and running and out of fū and making shit up. I've been in a men's group for over 20 years with Steve Kaltenhauser, Todd Costella and Trent Schumann. I have worked with my coaches Phil Holcomb and Grant Molyneux for the same period of time. I have mentors dating back to Norm Sigalet my old highschool teacher and current friend all the way to Brett Wilson on matters of philanthropy and national brand building. I have people helping with my social media (Kaitlin Sharpe) and on-line strategy (Sean Young), my book development (Rich Thompson, my brother Warren and Liane MacNeil.) I have numerous friends and clients and friends/clients involved in decades old conversational threads and many more collaborators too numerous to name (you may be one of them). And of course there are my family and ultimately my partner in life and all things grand, Miss Tania.
We would all have a speech to make if we ever won an Oscar, literally or metaphorically: "I'd like to thank..." None of us ever gets where we are without a community of people who gently and sometimes more assertively nudge us out of our comfort zones. Nothing great would happen otherwise. They are our blindspotting team.
The basic tenet of blindspotting is this: It is what I do not know about myself that tends to hold me back and what I think I know that is not true. I have weaknesses and strengths I am working on, but at this moment I know none of my blindspots. Nor do you. Tomorrow I am having a cup of tea with a good friend. I can count on her to let me in on at least one of them. It will be a great head-out-of-ass meeting.
This week is my highly-anticipated launch party for StepOne the book and StepOne the new coaching program for high potential millennials. It's from 6pm to 7:30pm at the ATB entrepreneur centre on 17th Ave SW in Calgary. Please reach out and let me know if you want to join us: rsvp@stepone.net.