In this special episode, Shannon Waller sits down with Program Coach Chad Johnson to explore his entrepreneurial journey, what he’s learned along the way, and how he helps Strategic Coach® members grow bigger, simpler, and more rewarding businesses.

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

• Why many of Chad’s early entrepreneurial ventures were short-lived.
• The turning point that made him get serious about building a real business.
• How Chad defines the entrepreneurial mindset and lives it daily.
• What sets Strategic Coach Program Coaches apart from traditional business coaches.

Show Notes:

There’s value around you all the time; often, it just takes a moment of attention to see it.

You can’t scale a business on ambition and positive attitude alone.

It’s natural for entrepreneurs to want to jump to the next project, but that impulse needs to be managed.

The right life partner can act as an accelerant for everything you want in life.

In great organizations, everyone makes everyone else better.

The work you do as an entrepreneur is closely tied to the growth you do at home.

For entrepreneurs, business is not just what you do—it’s part of who you are.

Strategic Coach coaches are also members, so they live the tools they teach.

Any new concept has to work for the coach first before it’s shared with members.

Freedom is often the deepest motivation for entrepreneurs.

It can take time for your real-world experience to catch up with your mindset and goals.

Long-term success comes from committing to a few important things, not chasing every new idea.

The right coach relationship helps you turn everyday experiences into breakthroughs.

Resources:

How to Win a Heart by Chad Johnson

Unique Ability®

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

The Impact Filter®

10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

How To Foster A Longevity Mindset & Reap The Benefits

The Entrepreneur's Guide To Time Management

The Bigger Future™ Countdown

Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

The Positive Focus®

The Team Success Podcast

The Only Leaders Worth* Following by Tim Spiker

G5 Summit

The Big Ski Family

Isolation is more than just uncomfortable—it distorts your thinking and drains your creativity. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller open up about the risks of going it alone as an entrepreneur and why strong relationships make all the difference. Listen now to learn smart, actionable ways to reconnect, recharge, and keep yourself moving forward with clarity and confidence.

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

• Why isolation causes the mind to invent stories and distort reality.
• The reasons entrepreneurs are particularly vulnerable to feeling isolated.
• Why isolated entrepreneurs develop outrageous aspirations.
• What makes Strategic Coach® the perfect place for entrepreneurs to make long-lasting connections.

Show Notes:

Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely path, especially without external feedback.​

When there’s no outside input, your mind starts making things up.

Isolation causes your brain to respond just like it would to sensory deprivation.

Entrepreneurs thrive on constant change, while most people resist change.

An entrepreneur’s creative imagination needs to be rewarded with real opportunities.

Many entrepreneurs feel truly stimulated only when they’re working productively.

Isolated entrepreneurs use their imaginations to give themselves the sense that they're actually connected to the world.

Feeling misunderstood quickly morphs into paranoia and makes isolation worse.

Entrepreneurs are better than most at finding their own clarity, even in tough situations.

The entrepreneurial journey means creating brand-new ideas and selling them, time after time.

Seeing life from other people’s perspectives keeps you connected and tuned in to reality.

The more you understand and appreciate other people’s experiences, the richer and more meaningful your own life becomes.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

Always Be The Buyer by Dan Sullivan

Do you ever wish difficult emotions would just disappear? In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller reveal why every feeling, especially the bothersome kind, is actually a valuable resource for entrepreneurial growth. Discover how turning frustration into clarity and action can lead to your next breakthrough, and learn the thinking tools that transform emotional energy into future results.

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

• How technology has increased conversations about feelings in daily life.
• Why your feelings serve as a built-in warning system for your thinking.
• How to quickly gain clarity instead of staying stuck when something bothers you.
• Why others struggle to truly understand your personal feelings.
• How Dan’s own feelings inspired all of the Strategic Coach® thinking tools.

Show Notes:

Feelings are signals, not solutions—they alert you to something worth thinking about.

Feelings don’t transform themselves; vision and capability do.

The real power lies in transforming emotional energy into future-focused action.

Feeling “bothered” is raw material for entrepreneurial creativity and improvement.

Successful entrepreneurs treat bother as a resource, turning it into planning and innovation.

Asking, “If I weren’t bothered, what would I be doing?” can pivot your mindset and open new possibilities.

Responding thoughtfully, rather than reacting emotionally, leads to better results for you and your team.

You can’t control others’ reactions, but you can fully own your own process and responses.

Ignoring your feelings (or acting out impulsively) usually makes things worse.

Every feeling brings energy—use it to fuel thinking, problem solving, and the creation of new tools.

Mastery comes from skillfully transforming negative emotions into positive action, not from avoiding them.

The entrepreneur’s job is to turn low-productivity “bother” into high-productivity breakthroughs.

Don’t aim for perfect detachment; instead, get better at using what bothers you for future advantage.

Resources:

Not Being Bothered by Dan Sullivan

The Impact Filter™

The Entrepreneurial Attitude

Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller

What if ambition isn’t something you’re born with, but a capability you can keep growing?

In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explore why ambition is the single master capability for entrepreneurs and how to nurture it. Learn why talking about ambition is difficult, how to grow it continually, and why community and capability are the true accelerators of progress.

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

• Why entrepreneurs rely on ambition more than most people.
• The most common misconception about ambition.
• How to navigate the social dynamics around ambition.
• Why envy threatens ambition and how to spot it.
• How Strategic Coach® creates a safe space for honest, open ambition.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs succeed because they decide to rely on their own ambition and capability, taking a road most people won’t choose.​

Ambition is not a fixed trait—it’s a capability, and it grows each time you acquire new skills or take on new challenges.​

Ambition is the single master capability that enables you to achieve all other capabilities.

Openly talking about ambition can be uncomfortable because people often feel there’s a pecking order with ambition, but this discomfort is natural, and moving past it leads to greater freedom and fulfillment.

Comparing yourself to others works against ambition; entrepreneurs thrive by measuring progress from their own efforts and growth, not against external ideals or other people.​

Envy is the true enemy of ambition—it’s driven by comparison and leads to stagnation rather than growth.​

The Strategic Coach community is designed for entrepreneurs to talk about ambition openly, celebrate wins, and receive genuine support and collaboration.​

Unique Ability® is central: focus on a few activities that truly make use of your strengths, and surround yourself with others who do the same.​

Collaboration among unique, ambitious people isn’t accidental; when you support someone else’s ambition, you reinforce your own.​

Every Strategic Coach tool you master is meant to help you grow ambition, navigate obstacles, and create new opportunities.​

If you want ambition to keep expanding, focus on what gives you energy and leverage your team so you can multiply your results.​

Growth as an entrepreneur isn’t about fitting in; it’s about continually becoming more useful and unique in the marketplace.

Resources:

Always More Ambitious by Dan Sullivan

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

The Impact Filter™

Unique Ability®

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Are you thriving or just arriving? In this episode, Shannon Waller and Program Coach Lee Brower explore the lifelong mindset that keeps entrepreneurs in motion long after the initial motivation fades. Discover practical ways to make growth and gratitude central to your business, family, and life—plus the powerful impact of asking the right questions and building strong traditions that last.

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

• The surprising first job Lee created for himself before he was old enough for a paper route.
• What sparked Lee’s deep appreciation for entrepreneurship and its ecosystem.
• How Lee defines the mindset that drives enduring entrepreneurial success.
• Why motivation and inspiration play different roles on the entrepreneurial journey.
• How to tell the difference between genuine confidence and mere arrogance.
• Why great entrepreneurs are more like rivers than you might think.
• Lee’s most powerful lesson from three decades at Strategic Coach®.

Show Notes:

Not everyone chooses entrepreneurship—sometimes it chooses you.

Money motivates at first, but it’s the freedom it brings that keeps you going.

The best lessons come from learning alongside other entrepreneurs, not just from teaching.

Successful entrepreneurs focus on making things better, easier to access, and more valuable.

Great entrepreneurs don't ask themselves what's wrong. They ask, “What's right?” and “How can I make it even better?”

Problems don’t hold entrepreneurs back; they turn problem solving into daily practice.

Motivation is temporary. Inspiration and purpose are what keep you going.

You can elevate yourself by surrounding yourself with people who have skills you don’t have.

Family traditions, shared language, and rituals build lasting culture at home and in business.

The most valuable assets aren’t financial; they’re values, learning, relationships, and contribution.

Never delegate away your Unique Ability® until you truly know and refine it.

Confidence grows from gratitude and from focusing on others, not just on yourself.

Great results come from being open to learning in every interaction. Instead of chasing answers, ask better questions.

The enemy of thriving is arriving.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

The Impact Filter™

Range: Why Generalists Triumph In A Specialized World by David Epstein

The Positive Focus®

strategiccoach.com

leebrower.com

Do you feel alone navigating the entrepreneurial journey, even in a room full of peers? This episode uncovers the power of a shared language, showing how entrepreneurs elevate their growth, tackle obstacles, and celebrate wins together. Discover how Strategic Coach’s thinking tools turn isolation into collaboration, making progress possible for everyone—no matter their industry or experience.

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

• How Strategic Coach® stands apart from other coaching companies.
• How thinking tools create a shared language for entrepreneurs.
• A simple approach for entrepreneurs to clarify their ideal role.
• The story of Dan building an entrepreneurial community in 1982.
• Why entrepreneurs tend to experience more isolation than others.

Show Notes:

Entrepreneurs often don’t have words for their experience, and Strategic Coach provides them.

A shared language empowers entrepreneurs to interpret and elevate their experiences within a supportive community.

At most entrepreneurial coaching companies, every client knows that everyone else in the room is a competitor, and it makes for a toxic learning environment.

Most business coaching programs actually make entrepreneurs feel more isolated, lonely, and anxious.

Strategic Coach builds environments where each entrepreneur is seen as a resource rather than a rival.

Strategic Coach’s 250 thinking tools create a common language and provide practical frameworks for collaboration, growth, and clarity.

Strategic Coach members are all making progress within the same framework.

Common language shortcuts, like The 4 C’s Formula®, accelerate mutual understanding and meaningful conversation.

In creating his thinking tools, Dan Sullivan intentionally avoids jargon so that communication is clear, practical, and relevant to real experience.

There are elements common to every entrepreneur’s experience, no matter what industry they’re in.

Resources:

Your Life As A Strategy Circle by Dan Sullivan

Unique Ability®

How To Harness The Power Of Negative Thinking

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

Who Not How by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

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

10x Is Easier Than 2x by Dan Sullivan with Dr. Benjamin Hardy

Do you see ambition as a fixed trait or an ever-expanding capability? In this episode, Dan Sullivan reframes ambition as the platform for all growth. Discover why ambition expands with every capability you build, how it empowers collaboration, and why this mindset leads to greater innovation, freedom, and lasting entrepreneurial success.

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

• What inspired Dan to redefine ambition as a capability rather than a destination.
• Why his greatest goal is simply to become more ambitious over time.
• How traditional views of ambition create unnecessary burdens for female entrepreneurs.
• Why seeing ambition as a limited resource holds people back.
• How shifting your perspective allows ambition to drive every new capability.

Show Notes:

Ambition is not a destination but a capability that creates all other capabilities.

The spark behind every new skill or achievement is your ambition to grow.

Ambition expands with use, much like a muscle that strengthens with repeated resistance.

Gaining one new capability naturally increases your ambition for the next.

You can decide to increase your ambition long before you know the specific projects you will undertake.

True ambition is abundant and does not come at others’ expense.

Empowering your own ambition can inspire and multiply the ambition of others.

Society often misrepresents ambition as competitive or distasteful, yet entrepreneurs can transform how it is understood.

Education rarely addresses ambition, leaving many people isolated in how they think about it.

Ambition should not be defined by limits, like a “gas tank,” but as an ever-expanding resource.

The 4 C’s Formula®—commitment, courage, capability, and confidence—depends on ambition to power growth.

Viewing ambition as a capability eliminates gender barriers and unfair expectations placed on both men and women.

Ambition grows through collaboration, teamwork, and creativity rather than isolation.

Focusing on your next capability creates a self-sustaining cycle of personal and professional growth.

Resources:

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

The Bigger Future™ Countdown

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

Unique Ability®

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve taken complete responsibility for your financial welfare, choosing to make a living based on what makes you unique. When entrepreneurs get frustrated and start focusing on what isn’t working, it means they’ve strayed from their uniqueness. In this episode, Dan Sullivan and Shannon Waller explain how to recognize when this is happening and how to get back to finding business success doing what you love and are great at.

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

• The specific type of economic role every entrepreneur is uniquely designed to fill.
• The single root cause behind every problem an entrepreneur experiences.
• Why entrepreneurs get frustrated without knowing why.
• How to become hypersensitive to anything that will throw you off track.

Show Notes:

Your Unique Ability® is the innate talent you’ve been honing since birth, characterized by high energy and exceptional results.

When children play, it’s a way for them to discover what they’re great at and love doing.

Entrepreneurs create value for other people by doing what they’re very good at and find easy to do.

Most people don’t bet their futures on the abilities that make them unique.

Frustrated entrepreneurs become preoccupied with what doesn’t work.

The most effective way to solve problems is to strengthen what works, not to dwell on the problems themselves.

Strategic Coach® helps you become an objective observer of your own performance.

You’re the only person you have a total lifetime responsibility for.

Once you’ve figured yourself out, you can focus on being in great teamwork and collaboration with others.

Powerful external collaborations are simply the linkage of unique capabilities between organizations to create new market value.

Your role as an entrepreneur is to use what works for you to solve a "not-working" problem for someone else.

Every transaction in the marketplace is ultimately about freeing someone else up to do more of what works for them.

Resources:

Unique Ability®

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

Do you think your business must always depend on you? In this episode, Shannon Waller and Program Coach Gina Pellegrini reveal how empowering your team and building a business that runs without you creates true entrepreneurial freedom. Learn why letting go, focusing on your strengths, and shifting your mindset lead not only to business growth but to more energy, impact, and joy.

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

• The early clue that revealed Gina’s entrepreneurial spirit.
• The turning point that inspired her to launch her own business.
• How she scaled her consulting company to remarkable success.
• The game-changing impact Strategic Coach® membership has had on her career.
• How her company transforms the way financial advisors work with their teams.
• The innovative new project her business is developing.
• What she finds most rewarding about coaching in The Strategic Coach® Program.

Show Notes:

True entrepreneurial growth happens when you design a business that thrives without your constant management.

Outsourcing key activities like scheduling frees you to focus on vision, growth, and meaningful client relationships.

Building a Self-Managing Company® starts with hiring, trusting, and empowering team members to take real ownership.

Owning your role as a leader means knowing when to let go and allow others to shine.

Team members should be treated as an investment, not a cost.

Experienced, long-term team members create trust, efficiency, and a shared shorthand that eliminates friction and builds momentum.

Pursuing personal passions outside your main business can energize you and is made possible by the right team support.

The Impact Filter™ tool provides clarity, commitment, and a practical road map to execute on new ideas without falling into overwhelm.

It’s important to take time to measure how far you’ve come (“The Gain”) instead of only chasing what’s next (“The Gap”).

Your journey as an entrepreneur impacts not just your bottom line but your freedom, joy, and well-being.

Resources:

The Appointment Scheduler by Gina Pellegrini

What Is A Self-Managing Company®?

Unique Ability®

Bella Gina Boutique

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

What Free Days™ Are And How To Know When You Need Them

The Impact Filter™

Kolbe A™ Index

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