Sheri: Faisal how? One, I think one of the aspects that can be really challenging is how you, or how have you identified strategically which people you want to collaborate with? You know, is it somebody that is very similar to what you do and so you can just kind of meld things together? Is it somebody that does something very different?
And then they’re just adding this extra piece to what you already do or, you know, what does that look
Faisal: like? Yeah. And it’s so at a primary level, I’m, I’m looking I’m at the primary level. I’m looking to align with people who have core values and certain types, a similar version of a vision that I have.
Like if I can’t align with the values of the vision, I can’t because I’ll have to try to figure out how I can work things out and this doesn’t mean you have to be the same people. It could be very different people having very similar values like in relationships and, and life relationships.
If you watch husbands and wives, they have the same life, but they could be incredibly different. In fact, most are, they’re very different from each other. In fact, they complement each other in a lot of ways. Because of that, that reminds me of each other’s weak points
Sheri: That reminds you of the Jerry McGuire quote. You complete me.
Faisal: You complete me. Yes. So we do that. And so that’s the other part of it is, so as long as I align in terms of the vision and values, then I actually, it’s more interesting for me for somebody to be different. Now, Dr. Sherry is really different from me. Yeah. And the way she thinks, and you could, you probably guess that in the way that she talks and the way that, and we, we just met in, in Colorado and we were just talking about our differences in the way that we communicate on video and, and what are our strengths and weaknesses in there.
It was just funny. But I, I love that. For example, Daniel and, and our team, like I love collaborating with Daniel cause his mind is so goddamn different from mine. I’m like, Daniel, that’s just you. Yeah. And then some things I will say he is like, yeah, no, I don’t think that’ll work out. Okay. It’s fine. But it’s, so this part is really important.
Most people won’t go towards collaborating with people who are habitually different from them. And thinking wise, because there might be a certain level of insecurity. Because naturally speaking, if somebody thinks differently, they have different behaviors, and they will challenge your assumptions.
Hmm. They will challenge the way you do things. They’ll also appreciate certain things that you do, but they will, and if, if you feel insecure in that area, you won’t be able to connect with others you won’t be able to get feedback. And, and I did that too. Like I’ll share with you just a few years ago, somebody will give me feedback who’s a little bit different from me, and then I would give reasons.
They’d be like, oh, no, no, no, this is why I’m doing this, this. And then I caught myself. I’m like, I’m just defending myself. I’m just defending why I should be like that. And then I, I learned to do something that was profound and I was like, thank you. I love that. That’s all. Thank you. I love that. I might or might not take parts of that, but I stopped trying to defend myself because if something is working, it’s working.
If something needs improvement, I can look at it and say, okay, maybe this has, there’s something to it. So what I mean by that is, Once you get past vision and values, then you’ll ideally, and then I’ve also learned this from business owners. You wanna look for people who kind of fill the voids that you have.
So I’m a bigger-picture vision kind of person in this. And I’ve also trained myself to look at this in this, the detail. I think it’s important. I can’t completely ignore that. But then I have people in my team who are very they can’t, they’re love detail. They love, like Daniel. Love it. Yeah. Like
Sheri: Daniel, Daniel is an amazing integrator.
He’s an amazing detail person. He looks, you know, he looks forward at the implications of things and has 29 different possible paths something could go. And he’s already trying to mitigate every 20, every single, you know, of those. He’s amazing in, that way, and it’s very different.
Faisal: Yeah, and, this is very interesting. I think it makes it more fun. If you can get past your own insecurities, it makes it more fun when you connect with people who have different habits, different ways of looking at things, just different. And our normal tendency is to get around people who are like us most of the time.
Yeah, like us and everything, because it just confirms our own little things, which is fine, it’s a human thing. But then in business, you want, you, especially in business, you ideally want people to that kind of compliment you in a lot of ways. Although, I will say there are times when I’ve collaborated with people who are a lot like me for the purpose of amplifying certain things.
So for example, I would want to get around somebody who is, who connects with people who are out and about like me, because we’re working on kind of marketing more. Mm-hmm. And then, for example, you and I have a shared interest around, okay, I wanna put myself out there at this point. I want to do that stuff.
So I love doing this collaboration. Because we’re both focused on the marketing aspect of this thing. Even though we might be different in other ways, we have that shared interest and we wanna approach it in our little ways. But it’s very important to understand who you are collaborating with and, and, whether are they gonna complement your skill sets.
Are they gonna help you? And you find that out as you start to. Talk to people as you start to find out what they focus on and you start to find out what they do. And that requires a certain amount of curiosity, which I know most coaches do, but just being curious about, okay, how can we support each other as we move forward?
Sheri: And I think one important thing to be, to just recognize that could be going on in your mind is, yeah, but what if this, what if this doesn’t work out? What if this collaboration tanks? What if it does? You know, I, I mean, I’ve thought about that with the Coaching Mastery community. I’ve thought about that with some other things that I’m doing, and I’ve thought about that with things that I’d like to do.
And so what, what if it doesn’t work out? Is that the end of the world? No, in fact, Through the process of realizing that something really isn’t the way that you thought it was going to be, or didn’t materialize the way, like that’s an opportunity to learn, right? We’re coaches, we’re constantly helping our clients understand that.
Failures quote unquote failures. If you’re not watching the video. There, there are opportunities for us to learn more about ourselves and more about other people. It’s a growth opportunity. So if a collaboration ends up not being what you expected it to be, or not being a long-term thing, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have done it or that it was wrong, or that it was bad.
Yesterday I had a conversation with another coach who told me, He’s like, yeah, I’ve been doing this podcast with another coach for quite some time, and he just gave me his two weeks. And then what he said after that was, and actually it’s kind of a good thing because, you know, as, as you were saying, Faisal
there was starting to be this difference in values and direction.
So now this coach has an opportunity. Where he’s bringing on another coach to co-host with him, and this other coach is more aligned with where he’s wanting to go. So remember, there are always opportunities to pivot. There are always opportunities, to change things up, to grow, to learn to shift. You’re not pigeonholing yourself by collaborating.
It’s not something you can’t stop, undo, or change in the future.
Faisal: Yeah. And then I literally did a video y yesterday on our community page about this. Is that, so for example, I think I have four major collaborations. Five I think going on right now. Three are going really well, two are tanking. Very normal.
And, it’s almost anything you do, and this is, this is a very common sense thing, but it’s not uncommon practice. A lot of times. So I’m looking at what are the things based on my vision, I really wanna get good at, and this is why this is a high interest for me.
There are certain things I want to personally get really good at. One is that collaboration is one of the biggest ones, and for several reasons because I’m going towards building communities. I need to understand how to work things out with people and I need to beat that process up. I need to work with all sorts of different types of people to make sense of how that works.
Yeah. And I know that I’m in business as well. Business does not work without collaboration. Just, just plain, especially at the scale level, it does not work without collaboration. And so I need to understand how to practice, how to put that, I need to put that to test. And and that requires me to keep, keep putting myself out there in these situations and, and doing it.
Give me one second.
Sheri: Yeah.
All right. So while Faisal is talking to somebody off-screen for a moment What if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, ah, I don’t really have my vision dialed in, maybe I’ve got some goals, or I’ve got an idea of the kind of in general where I want my life to go and where I want my coaching to go, but you’re not really sure how to actually dial your vision in and really understand the values, which is part of the core principle of really doing good collaborations.
If you don’t feel like you’ve got that dialed in, There’s good news. Faisal is becoming an expert in that. He’s delivered presentations and walked tons of clients and coaches through the process of developing visions
Faisal: so anything based on your vision, this is why this is so important that you need to develop as a skillset that requires you to keep putting yourself in that situation, positive or negative results, and get feedback around it.
So not just practice, but get feedback on what is working. Part of it is the process will give you feedback. Part of it will be the people that you’re collaborating with. They’ll give you feedback and you can explicitly ask for feedback. A lot of times, how is this working? How can we improve the process?
And so you will have a mixed bag of results from something like this. And probably more so on the negative side than the positive side initially, until you figure out some of the things, just like anything else. And then you start to make improvements as you move along because now you start to see better, more patterns of what works and what doesn’t work, and you get better at refining collaboration.
So just going back to that question, who do I connect with? Well, you need to connect with a bunch of different people, with the initial point of your vision. And values, but a bunch of different people to see who can you play well with. Mm-hmm. Shorter term and longer term, and what do you need to improve within yourself?
What are you looking for within your collaboration? You just simply don’t have that data. It’s the same as when you’re dating people. You’re like, well, I want this kind of person. Well, you get around that person. I don’t think I want that person.
Sheri: Absolutely. Absolutely. You have this idea of, yeah, in your mind of what is your ideal person for collaboration or for marrying, and then, yeah, and you realize, oh, well, if they have this personality trait that also typically comes with this one, and I don’t want that one.
So, So, yeah, absolutely. It’s trial and error. You just have to do things. You have to take action in order for you to get clarity. Clarity comes through action. Listen up. Clarity comes through action. So you’ve just gotta take action. Even if you don’t know what you’re doing or it feels like it’s messy, you just gotta keep moving.
Faisal: A couple of last points. So once you get into these conversations, just being open to something is very important and explicitly asking like, where are areas that we can collaborate?
Not hoping that the other person says it, but where are there areas we can collaborate and work together when you’re meeting people? And once you start doing that, all right, I’m getting attacked. Gimme one second.
Sheri: And lemme just point out to a lot of us as coaches, there’s a value in coaching because it gives you time. Sometimes, but location depends on freedom so that you don’t have to work a nine-to-five. You can do things on your time or in your place or wherever you want.
And so all of us, a lot, actually, not all of us, but a lot of us in the Coaching Mastery community, Are really working towards being able to travel more and being able to do some more kind of creative things at the same time that we’re growing our coaching business. So I just want to acknowledge faisal right now cuz he is not home.
He is away from his house. He still has his two little girls with him and he’s still working and he’s. You know, he’s trying to do it all. And, so I think that’s awesome. Great.
Faisal: Thank you. I appreciate that. They were also sick last night, so they’re a little bit more needy than normal.
Yeah. And they know we’re driving back, so they’re a little excited about that too. So just once you put yourself in that situation, kind of watch, like observation is so powerful, watching people’s work ethics. That trial period will tell you a lot about how people work doing something short-term with people, whether you do, like, let’s say let’s do a training thing for a while.
Let’s do this thing for a while. And as you do this, you understand how people operate and, obviously, there’s room for growth for everybody, including ourselves, but that gives you more data as to, okay, what kind of person I wanna work with. Here. And, and I’ve been surprised. There are people who are very effective and productive that I’ve collaborated with, but I haven’t liked them in other ways.
And there are people who haven’t been as productive, but they, they had the potential to open up to that, to that. I’ve liked working better with them at times. Yeah. Or the reverse has happened as well. And just being open to the possibility of what this could do. And coming back to what we started off our last conversation with is that ideally what you want to do in collaborations you’re trying to make that this is in the words of a reals investor who was a coach who came on the podcast and stuck with me who I’m collaborating with right now is that you wanna ideally make the pie bigger.
And collaboration. So you’re working to create a system where the resources that come in, feed everybody in that system. Mm-hmm. And that requires a lot of work. Naturally, that requires a lot of thoughtfulness, but once the systems are built, it naturally, ideally needs to go on its own.
It will, it will naturally grow in that direction. So being open to that is very important, and being patient with that is very important because it takes a lot of time to connect with people, get used to each other, and understand how people operate. And that would be the last one. And then after what?
After that, you will get enough data to move it forward to yourself.
Sheri: Yeah, so let me recap kind of the highlights that I wrote down from what you were saying, pal. First and foremost, you’ve just gotta get around people. You’ve got to get out of your own skin, your own mind, your own physical location, and connect with people.
You literally can’t collaborate without a connection. So kind of a prerequisite. Secondly, you’ve gotta really understand your vision, and that includes what are your values. What are the things you really care about? What are you trying to achieve? What’s the impact that you want in the world? And it doesn’t mean that it’s just specific to your coaching niche, but how about.
In general in life. And the more that you are dialed in and understand yourself, you’re gonna be able to then identify other people that are gonna have a complimentary and similar vision. And so that when you guys move forward that there’s some synergy that happens and there’s less budding of heads.
Thirdly or fourthly rather be proactive. Be looking for opportunities to connect with people. That might be somebody that would be a great collaborator for you and nurture that relationship. Don’t assume that they’re, that you are so great that they’re gonna just naturally come to you and want to nurture that relationship with you.
Have some humility. Understand that you’re just another seed in the, you know, another face in the sea of faces in the world. You, but you do have something to offer. And so make yourself stand out by pursuing and nurturing relationships. And then lastly is to be an observer. Try things out as you’re collaborating with people, having those explicit conversations, and saying, Hey, You know what?
I see that you’re doing this and this is what you’re about and this is what I wanna do and this is what I’m about. I think we might actually be on a similar path and there might be a way that I can bring value to you and what you’re doing and vice versa. What do you think? And start that conversation and be willing to hear no.
Be willing to hear. Yes. Or maybe and then try things out. Be patient. You know, nothing. I don’t know of anything that when you, when you’re trying something out, it happens perfectly and the result is exactly what you predicted. There’s always, always a margin of error. Even in science even in statistics, there’s always a margin of error.
So just understand that things aren’t gonna be perfect, aren’t gonna happen perfectly, but be okay with that and do it anyway. Did I miss anything?
Faisal: Yeah, and the only thing I would add to that is just in terms of being explicit, it can be on an individual level, or you can actually, the groups you’re a part of, whether you, you’re part of a community and stuff, you can literally go out there and say, Hey, I’m open to collaborations.
I’m looking to collaborate with a couple of people or partner up to do this training or that thing. Would anybody be interested in that? Something as simple as that will get other people’s attention. Or you, and also, Posting stuff around, Hey, this is what I did with this collaboration. Then it gets people to know what you want.
If you don’t do that, people don’t magically figure out that you’re open to that and most people assume that you’re not.
Sheri: Yeah. Very, very good practical suggestion and that you, I’ve just gotta let people know and it can be, Can be in general like, Hey, this is what I’d like to do. Did anybody open the conversation?
That’s awesome. So listener coach who is listening to this, I really hope that there are a few points here that just hit home for you that really made you think a little bit differently or expanded your perspective of collaboration and even more importantly, gave you something actionable cuz remember, You gotta act in order to be able to get something to change or do something different or get success or progress.
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