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Years ago, Ben wrote that his personal mission statement was “to help people reach their full potential” and our conversation touches on this theme in many different ways.  Ben is a former car rental pro turned consultant turned HR executive. His work in HR landed him on the cover of Human Resource Executive. It’s pretty cool, so I wanted to share it here:

He then decided to leave the corporate world and has been on an entrepreneurial journey for the last six years as an executive coach and startup founder.  In our conversation about coaching, Ben mentioned a fact from an HBR article on coaching that I thought was fascinating.

“It’s rare that companies hire business coaches to address non-work issues (only 3% of coaches said they were hired primarily to attend to such matters), yet more than three-quarters of coaches report having gotten into personal territory at some time.”

This disparity really gets to the core of what people like Ben are about – being more human at work.  Ben joked in our conversation that everyone’s real issue is with their parents. While certainly funny, this gets to a deeper point that many people are waking up that we can’t just show up as robots to work anymore.  There has been a wider embrace of being our full selves at work, led by people like Ben who started the first LGBT group at his consulting firm more than 10 years ago.

Our conversation touches on a number of issues including coaching, entrepreneurship, how his relationship with work has evolves, management versus leadership and what he wants written on his tombstone.  Some other topics we touch on:

• Ben’s motivation to work at Enterprise Rent-a-Car after college and what he learned
• His early entrepreneurial “ventures” starting at 12 years old
• How his mindset about work shifted as he became successful in the corporate world
• His experience hiring working with an executive coach in his late 20s
• His experience coaching and favorite exercises
• Why companies are scared of trusting their people
• Why being a manager is actually an incredible opportunity for people
• The learning and ownership upside of carving your own path
• The value of having advisors, friends of confidants to celebrate “wins”
• Balancing life & work and his personal sustainability
• Deciding to give himself a raise as an entrepreneur

Links Mentioned:

• What coaches can do for you (HBR)
• Pilot: Executive Coaching For Organizations
• Ben Brooks Coaching
• Connect with Ben: LinkedIn, Instagram & Twitter

41k+ Sold! (Top 1% Book) The Pathless Path is Paul's book about walking away from a "perfect" job with a promising future and starting over again. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries, and a deep dive into the history of our work beliefs, Paul pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to what he calls "the pathless path" - a new story for thinking about work in our lives. Learn More & Buy The Book Here

The post Ben Brooks on coaching, trust, the art of management & entrepreneurship appeared first on Boundless by Paul Millerd.

Tanya Alvarez is the Co-Founder, and CEO of OwnersUP is a platform which advances solopreneurs business through accountability, goal setting, and community. Over the past fifteen years, Tanya has accumulated marketing experience with international & US companies such as Nike and US Olympics. She started her first company at the age of 25 and grew it to be a profitable company from credit card debt to over $1mm in gross revenue the first year. Since then, she has founded, bootstrapped, sold and invested in several companies.

OwnersUp – Website & Twitter

Tanya’s Recent Book Recs

• How To Fail At Anything and Still Win Big
• How To Raise A Perfect Dog
• Super Better
• Built to Sell

My Book Recommendations: Boundless Top Reads on Amazon

Podcast Information: #BoundlessPod

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41k+ Sold! (Top 1% Book) The Pathless Path is Paul's book about walking away from a "perfect" job with a promising future and starting over again. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries, and a deep dive into the history of our work beliefs, Paul pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to what he calls "the pathless path" - a new story for thinking about work in our lives. Learn More & Buy The Book Here

The post Boundless Podcast: Tanya Alvarez on resilience, entrepreneurship & community (Episode 12) appeared first on Boundless by Paul Millerd.