About Charlie Breeding Expertise I can help you with Team Building, and the many ways by which you can achieve greater team building outcomes. What's your first question?
Experience Fifteen wonderful years with Dale Carnegie Training as a Trainer, Center of Excellence Director/VP reporting to CEO, and Franchisee. I've also worked for Dr. Steven Covey at FranklinCovey. I've been conducting Team Building workshops and interventions for over 22 years with superior, proven and long-lasting results.
Organizations ASTD, ISPI, SHRM, and others...
Publications Over 25 publications, & more information at www.thepepcoach.com
Education/Credentials BS in Engineering from West Point
Awards and Honors Too many to list here, but go to www.breedingtrust.com to learn more.
Expert: Charlie Breeding Date: 7/24/2008 Subject: Creating a New Job
Question Hi Charlie,
I received my Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology in 1975, am still licensed and stopped practicing in 1980. Although I was a good therapist it was in business that I discovered an extraordinary and unique opportunity for my talents. In 1980 I changed directions and started a restaurant on a shoe string budget. I worked very hard and was fortunate to own and participate in three successful businesses. In 1985 we started our third restaurant where we served up to twenty thousand customers per month and at one time had close to one hundred employees. After 25 wonderful years I sold my business in 2005.
During the past two years I have actively sought new work which could maximize my talents and interest. I taught at San Jose and San Francisco State Universities in their business departments and yet to get beyond teaching one or two courses without a PhD did not seem workable. Back in 1997 I started studying and learning investing and have continued that work (full time now) up to the present. The problem for me in trading and investing is the lack of social interaction and the inability to share what I have learned the past thirty years.
So where my talents lie and what do am I good at? The short answer is creating and running healthy businesses and having the ability and knowledge to assist employees to become their own coaches, to see a bigger picture, to make a larger contribution, and most importantly a better person. Business offered me this opportunity that being a therapist never did. I was able to bring forth my educational and working experiences and introduce those values into the marketplace in what I believe was respectful and creative. I think all businesses share many of the same issues, concerns and breakdowns whether small or large. Even though they produce and sell different products their underlying values and points of view is what sets them apart.
From my perspective, a healthy business is not a perfect entity; on the contrary, it probably has as many problems as an unhealthy business. One of the important characteristics of a healthy business is how they handle their problems and what kind of values they bring to the table. Values such as honesty, integrity, dealing forthrightly with problems, being fair, and managing gossip and pettiness all contribute to a healthy business. It goes without saying that a business must be financially secure and have an excellent product to sell, however, by creating a healthy business I believe the bottom line is positively affected and employees end up having a functional stake in a productive business.
Let me share one example of how we went about creating a healthy business. Rather than focusing on the faults of our employees I challenged employees (managers on down) to discover and focus on their strengths and gifts. I think many people in the marketplace assume that in order to be successful they need to dig into their problems and try and eliminate them. From my experience I think the most highly successful people across a variety of fields—from arts to athletics and science succeed by maximizing their strengths, not by focusing efforts on their weaknesses. Great businesses (and managers) play to their strengths. They don’t get stuck in efforts to make themselves less weak in different areas. Instead, they find ways to compensate for weaknesses and take full advantage of strengths. This is not to say we didn’t work on weaknesses (they must be managed or they will manage us) it’s just a change of focus.
So my question is: how can I take what I have learned in the past 30 years and make a career out of it? I would love to do consulting with businesses in conflict resolution skills, leadership skills, decision making and judgement skills, cooperation skills, goal setting and planning skills, etc. I just haven’t been able to make any headway.
James
Answer James,
Thanks for your question. It's apparent that you have lots to offer business owners and managers.
If I were you, I'd build an internet presence to start with -- for guidance there, go to www.firststepinternetmarketing.com/breeding and speak with Judith and Jim -- their program would help you. This is a 2-3 year undertaking, not 2-3 months.
The other things that I would do is create a brochure, business cards, etc and start to network locally to you for clients. Could you build the business without an internet presence? Yes, but you'd need to be a networker extraordinare.
If you want to see an example of a site that I built, very much along the same lines as your intended offerings, go to www.thepepcoach.com/home.htm.
Another thought is to find other like-minded consultants in your area, and investigate a consortium or partnership of some type. You also might take project-based consulting work --- check the many job websites that might offer project work.
