Don’t Let the Jackpot Hit You
Good morning, fellow coaches. One of the things I hope you’ll get to do in this wonderful business of ours is to be around long enough to see some of your clients grab the brass ring. I hope you’ll be at the party when they hit the jackpot in business and they’re able to sell out and retire early, partly because you’ve coached them so well. Suddenly, they’re worth millions more than they would ever want to spend, and after years of hard work, and maybe at a fairly young age, they’ve got time, health and wealth in one package.
When this happens, I have a suggestion. Write yourself a note in your Outlook to see them in person six months later. They’ll need some “post buyout coaching”.
Why? It never fails. Every time someone hits the jackpot like this, the jackpot hits them with a whammy. Six months into their new life, they’re tired of playing golf, they don’t want to even think about packing for another tourist trip out of the country, there is no more furniture left in the city that they haven’t bought to redecorate both houses, and the most exciting conversation they have to look forward to each week is with their broker or the pool man. These former clients are in serious need of one word of advice from you: the best thing to do after selling one venture is to get involved in a new one. Fast.
Tell them that the most successful people in the world of business really never stop working at something, even when they’ve got more money than a Saudi teenager on a Belair credit card binge.
Remind them that success is never about getting more money, but giving more back, to people, the community, their profession, their family, and the world.
Tell them one more time that the pipe dream of hitting the jackpot is really a crock: that the dream of having nothing to do, no early alarm clock to answer, no messages to return and no payroll to meet is dangerous. As business mentor Marshall Goldsmith says, “It is hard to find fulfillment in what we won’t do. We can only find fulfillment and meaning in what we will do.”
Help them to find a new challenge and a new niche. Fast.
Try and keep them from becoming like a guy I know of in a nearby city who sold his chain of five car dealerships recently. He arranged an agreement where he’s a “consultative director”, whatever that is. He still shows up every day, and sits in a nice office off of the showroom floor, waiting for phone calls from the new owners with anxious questions about how they should run the place.
Funny, the phone never seems to ring. Twenty year old sales people walk by his door and don’t even know who he is. He stews and gripes to his business pals over lunch over “what they’re doing to my stores”. Bad news. This guy needs a new dream, and fast.
Your best clients will never stop needing you as a coach, even after they hit it big and retire, because coaches are “dream casters”, plain and simple. And only the dead no longer need to dream.
To your very best, 
Coach Gary Henson
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