The One-Line Business Plan

First published on January 23, 2018

My coach, Rich Litvin, ran his (very successful) business for around a decade with a one-line business plan: Meet fun and interesting people.

I tell this story to clients sometimes. It's always greeted with a smile, and usually it's a smile of relief. Perhaps a relief of, 'Oh, it can be that simple'. It has opened up some wonderful clarity for people. One client, struggling with career decisions, settled on a one-line career plan. It was something like: Do what makes the greatest positive difference. How powerful. As that client sits in indecision now, they can check in: what here will make the greatest positive difference? And then a decision is likely to come.

Speaking to Rich two weeks ago, he retold this story to me and my fellow members of the Prosperous Coach Salon, where we work together. And it's interesting how, even though I've heard it before, it opened something new for me.

I'd been stuck in indecision. My energy was low. I was anxious. I was grumpy. I was tired. Now this may have been the upshot of coming back to work after three weeks off for Christmas. That's what I thought it was. Until Rich told the story.

As I reflected on it, I spoke about how I'd run my business. About what the underlying principle was which had taken me from career indecision to being a full-time coach. It came (in a perhaps not very obvious way) from this brilliant article by Richard Alderson of Careershifters, and I continued to use it for several years.

Essentially, this was my one-line career change plan, and later my one-line business plan: Follow the feeling.

Now mine isn't quite as good as Rich's, or the client I mention above, because it requires some explanation. The feeling, for me, is a flicker of excitement. An instinct. It's usually located in my chest, above and in front of my heart. When faced with a decision, where is the feeling? Then take a step forward down that line. Then, when faced with a decision, where is the feeling? Then take another step.

When it goes - disappears - I stop, take stock. Then think, now, in this decision, where is the feeling? Sometimes it involves a step back, or two, or three, or many. Sometimes something new opens up.

As I shared a brief version of this story with Rich, he said "It sounds like you have a compass." And I do.

As I have learnt more and done more reflection, I have learnt another frame for this. Because this feeling happens more and more the closer I get to the Through Me experience. When instead of reacting to the world, instead even of creating the world I want, I am allowing the world to happen through me. The closest - so far - that I can get to fulfilling my potential, to doing my best work, to being in my zone of genius. Rich is a listener, and a man of wisdom, so he stopped and said, 'Ok, that's the challenge. The commitment for this year is to ask yourself, what does the compass say? And then, what outcome here would be the world happening through you?'

The next day, my diary was quite clear. So I sat, and I thought. Where is the feeling? And further, where is the world happening through me?

In particular, I sat with a decision I'd been making. Should I run a programme for coaches? My resistance to this was great and complex - I don't want to be typecast as someone who only works with coaches; what if I fail; who am I to do this?

But the compass said, Start.

And so I did.

And I learnt quite quickly whether it was the right thing to do. Just a few hours later, having put a web page live and emailed the people who had taken part in two test calls late last year, I walked along the street to meet Emma. And the energy was flowing. I was almost lifted off my feet. Follow the feeling.

Three people I know have described the feeling of doing their greatest work as having hands on their lower back, pushing them and supporting them. For me, it's like there's a thread in my chest, pulling me forwards. So I knew I'd taken the right step. And I've been pulled along for the last 10 days.

My world feels unlocked. My worries - about The Coach's Journey, about how to price my coaching, about taking leadership in different areas - are suddenly less. I can just check in, and follow the feeling.