Bruce Elkin 

Personal Life Coaching Services and Personal Success Coaching

Success Stories About Creating What Matters Most in Life, Work, and Business

A Personal Success Coaching Success Story: Murray's Success Story:An Entrepreneur Figures Out What Truly Matters

Murray signed up for one of my workshop and personal success coaching programs because he hated his job and hoped to create a new purpose driven life and career.

As his personal success coach, one of the first things I asked him was to do was draw up a list of ten things he wanted to create over the next five weeks to ten years. Then I asked him to pick one result that he wanted to create during the five weeks of the course as a practice project.

However, at the second session, a week later, Murray was frustrated.

He'd discovered he did not want any of the things on his list, or the practice creation he'd chosen. They were all, he told us, things that he thought would make his wife or his parents happy.

I asked him to draw up a new list.

When he returned for the third session, Murray again reported the results he'd listed were not things he truly wanted. This time he'd made a list of ideals, things that he thought a man his age with a family "should" or was "supposed" to want if he were to appear mature, responsible, and successful.

Murray was frustrated and anxious about his failure to clarify what he wanted.

A good personal life coach works with what the client presents. I asked Murray to imagine that anything he wanted to create was possible, and that money, skills, education, outside approval, and success could all be assumed. I asked him to imagine what matters most to him under such optimum circumstances.

"I'd make up games," he said, with a sheepish look on his face. "Board games."

"Great," I said. "Is that something you'd truly like to do?"

"Yes," he said, "but."

"But, what?" I asked.

He seemed nervous, tentative, like a frightened child. "Is it okay to want something like that?" he asked. "I mean, it's kind of a kids' thing, isn't it? What would people think?"

"What people? Okay with who?" I asked.

"The heart wants what the heart wants," I told Murray and the group.

It's important to acknowledge what your heart wants. Just because you want something doesn't mean that you have to act on it; you always have a choice. It is, however, important to know what you do want."

Murray nodded.

"Besides," I added, "do you think the inventors of Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit care about what people think?" He grinned.

During the rest of our personal success coaching work, Murray practiced the skills of creating by inventing a prototype board game, which we played on the last night of the workshop. It was a great success and I was a proud life coach.

Through the life coaching process, Murray also got in touch with other deeply held desires. A desire to brew high quality beer from scratch using organic ingredients led him to envision and start a U-Brew business, which he built into a solid success, then sold.

Then he started a local microbrewery, which he envisions as a "zero-emissions" operation; all wastes will be re-cycled or turned into marketable organic products like exotic mushrooms and pond-raised catfish. The Brewery has become a great local and regional success, much appreciated by locals and visitors alike.

Although starting these businesses was stressful, Murray is happier now that he is focused on what matters to him. He is more energized now that his path has heart, and that path is leading him toward a life and career he truly cares about.

"It isn't always easy," he told me recently, "but it is what I want to do. And that's a lot better than trying to live up to other people's expectations or "shoulding" on myself."

Then he added, "Having a personal success coach really did make the whole thing a lot easier."

Naturally, I agreed.

The important thing to take away from these life and business success stories is that each of these personal success coaching clients bought into the life design process fully.

They practiced the skills of creating regularly and consistently. They learned from failure, and they learned from success. They looked to me, as their personal success coach, for help and support, but mostly they created what matters most to them on their own.

In the end, each not only created success at particular creations, they learned how to create success at almost anything that matters to them. Each became their own best personal success coach. I was and am very proud of them. [Back to Success Stories]