Passion, Purpose, Profit

9 Keys to Building an Authentic Executive Coaching Business

Donna Karaba

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781642794434
• eBook ISBN: 9781642794441
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

Passion Purpose Profit helps leaders follow their calling without missing their child's soccer games.

Leaders can see the knowledge, curiosity, and imagination that goes into successfully coaching executives. They can navigate the executive boardroom and coach with confidence. But how does a leader inspire joy while also being fully present in their children's lives? How does a leader—and a mom—build confidence in her clients and family? In Passion Purpose Profit, Donna Karaba gives leaders the keys to transforming lives and helping others fulfill their potential by modeling an integrated life. She uses her time-tested business blueprint, The Authentic Leadership Business Model™, to teach the principles that allow leaders to grow relationships in the workplace and in the home. Leaders discover how to coach executives to self-actualization, manage client relationships, and create real value, among other things. Passion Purpose Profit is the roadmap for anyone who wants to bring in a high net income without sacrificing their family.

Chapter 1:

Stuck in a Cycle

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

– Elizabeth Appell

Building a Prison and Busting Out

A significant catalyst in my search for self, sprang from a tragic loss at age twenty-one in March of 1983. It was my senior year of college. I could feel the “real world” approaching fast. I had no idea how real life was about to get. With a phone call, I received devastating news. My parents were dead from a “murder suicide” – a terrible label pinned on my loving parents. It was a catastrophic result of mental illness my father had struggled with during my college years.

It was beyond the worst thing I could have imagined. The news was surreal. This could not be true. My parents were pillars of strength. My mother was my best friend. I had just talked to her on the phone the week before. Both had visited me at school in February, just a month prior. We enjoyed lunch together at my favorite deli. My dad was acting silly, not at all his normal self. My mom explained his behavior as a side effect of the medication. My parents provided all of us an ideal family life. I was still completely dependent on them for guidance and financial support. The news was shocking. I could not believe they were gone … forever.

I soon sought financial security with a job at the number one computer company in the world. When I received the acceptance letter for the internship, I felt like Cinderella trading in my waitress clothes for a pinstripe business suit and leather briefcase. I loved my role learning computer software and hardware and training our customers both in our classroom and on-site where I travelled with our sales people. Just before the six-month internship came to a close, I began to consider where to “pound the pavement” to look for a job. Instead, my boss offered me a full-time position. Hallelujah!

Within a year, my office became my prison. My boss had generously found me a job, but this job was a desk job shuffling papers and staring at a computer screen. Unfortunately, for an extrovert, a job without people is the kiss of death. Exploring options with my boss, he suggested I would need to stay two years in my position before I could seek an outside sales position. Two years sounded exactly like 200 years to my 24-year-old ears. With the weight of my parents’ death sinking in and unable to put my heart and soul into my work, I asked for a six-month leave of absence. I wanted to soul search and travel all over Europe like my friend Einar had done. (I loved listening to Einar’s worldly adventures.) My new boss (I had five different bosses in less than two years) was able to offer me a one-month leave. That was not nearly enough, so I quit. I had a dream of becoming an entrepreneur and I would figure it out on my travels. I spent the next six months traveling on my own throughout Europe with my backpack, a Eurail pass, and an adventurous spirit.

When I came back to the states, I headed to California, encouraged by my college boyfriend, Rob. I tried on several roles working different jobs, computer sales, retail, sales training, executive recruiting, took art and woodworking courses and talked with a career counselor to find an avenue that would be my dream business and career. Not finding a clear path, I landed a corporate headquarters job with a salary I was comfortable with. Rob and I married and within several years my position grew to worldwide sales management for our largest customer.

When our first child Ty was born, Rob and I were decidedly done with the “rat race” in Silicon Valley. Having a child changed our perspectives. It was time to get serious about our careers and do something valuable instead of continuing to work solely for a paycheck. We both envisioned raising our children in a safe, family-friendly, college town. We wanted to advance our education and get on track with meaningful careers. We longed for work that aligned with our values.

We found a nice college town where we could raise our children and obtain our master’s degrees. We both decided to quit our Silicon Valley jobs and move to Colorado to go back to school. We had friends who had obtained their PhDs to fulfill their dreams of becoming professors while raising two young children.

We each announced to our employers that we were moving to Colorado. To our surprise, both employers offered us positions working from home. That threw a wrench in our plans, but it seemed like an opportunity not to pass up. California salaries vs. starving students? Hmmm. Thus, my corporate job continued.

Even though my job required worldwide travel, I spent time taking master’s level classes, searching for my next career. We purchased our dream home and had our second child Cole. My job was clearly in jeopardy as both a remote employee and a mother of two. Even though my boss had given me a stellar review, my position was about to move back to headquarters with or without me. My boss asked me how I was planning to raise two children and travel worldwide. That same question was going through my mind as well. I certainly did not want to move back to Silicon Valley after my maternity leave. We were happy where we were. I envisioned raising our children in our new dream home.

The final commission plus severance I received allowed me six months to bond with Cole, spend more time with Ty, and figure out what to do next. I knew how horrible it felt handing a baby to a caregiver after only seven weeks. Those torturous days, stuck in the office, separated from my baby, I would not wish on any mother. Even though I managed to negotiate part-time work, I longed to be with Ty. Having to breast pump hiding in a locked office was humiliating, especially when I had to borrow my male colleague’s office and worry about leaking through my blouse or spilling breast milk on the desk. With our second child Cole, I knew I needed more time with my baby and find a way to stay home. I was grateful to spend time with my baby Cole at home, able to observe Ty and Cole playing, and sit on the front porch together watching the rain and lightning flash over the foothills. Still, I was very concerned with how I would help provide for our family financially.

To enable me to stay at home, Rob agreed to start a sales agency. Rob pitched the idea to his employer and I wrote the business plan. Rob was willing to train me in the sales process and to help me build the business for a year before starting his master’s program. Having the sales agency allowed us to have a flexible schedule working from home. We both volunteered at our children’s school lunch hour and I enjoyed taking the kids to and from school. We also took classes while searching for our master’s degree programs. One of us could stop work to pick up the children and then prepare dinner midafternoon. We adored our children’s school. We had work/life balance and felt as though we were semi-retired. Life was wonderful. We were able to be present for our children in many ways and build our family’s dream together. All that was missing was our master’s degrees that would lead us to inspiring work.

The company we represented was sold which negatively affected our business. Rob was ready to start his master’s degree full time and teach part time. I chose corporate work that would allow financial stability, part-time work from home, and an opportunity to have my master’s courses partially paid by my employer. I wanted to keep our dream home and our kids in an ideal elementary school. I also wanted Rob to pursue his passion.

Finally, I found the ideal master’s program at Naropa University. I was called in for an interview and, to my surprise and heartbreak, later received a letter that my application was rejected. After yoga during my lunch hour at work, I shared the news through tears with my teacher and friend. I found out then that the program I had applied for was extremely competitive. My yoga teacher’s friend had volunteered at a homeless shelter for a year before being accepted. I had failed to mention my volunteer work.

My next plan was to reach a certain income to solve my problems of longing for more time with family. We could go on vacation and spend more quality time together with a more carefree life. After reaching the next income goal, I was no happier as nothing had changed in our lifestyle. We were not taking more vacations. I was feeling less happy, split emotionally and physically with one foot at work and one foot at home with my family.

I longed for more freedom and time with my children. Three days in the office was too much with only two days at home. I was dying on the inside. My boss was not supporting my request for another day at home even though I was willing to give up my office space. She too was a mother, yet she was clearly climbing the corporate ladder and had a nanny at home with her child. My flexible work arrangement was something she inherited.

The soul whispers, speaks, shouts, cries if it must. Listen.

My left hand reached out to open the top left drawer of the desk in my corner office on the second floor of the building in our headquarters’ complex. I noticed the familiar grayish white half folded paper copy of a quote stashed underneath my office supplies. I carefully pulled it out, as I had done several times before. I held it with both hands, “out it goes” I thought, “finally.” That same paper had sat in that drawer quite a while and every so often I would pull it out, read the quote, reflect on the possibility, and place it back in the drawer so that others would not see it. Why did I feel the need to hide it? I was hiding the fact that I felt so split. I did not feel comfortable with others knowing how unhappy I was at a deeper level as I longed for wholeness. I resonated so deeply with this quote because I was stuck in my current environment and the cyclical running back to corporate for financial safety and security, yet not finding wholeness with each attempt. I stared at the paper and rolled my chair over to the blue recycle bin by the glass door of my office. I held the paper over the plastic can committed to drop it in, but first I had to read it one last time,

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” – Marianne Williamson (The paper in my office attributed this quote to Nelson Mandela because he used this in his inaugural address.)

I decided to take action and met with the on-site career counselor and began exploring my values and options. I shared my dream to be a life coach, not realizing this was actually a professional field of work. She suggested I become a free agent. The career counselor was also a life coach in addition to the work she did on campus for the company. She urged me to take a coaching class that Saturday.

Just a few days later, I sat in class reading through the binder learning about the coaching philosophy. The coach introduced new ideas that were quite refreshing. I found what I had been searching for – a positive form of psychology. Eureka! My mainstream psychology courses focused on disease, not health. The coaching philosophy focused on human potential and how to help people achieve fulfillment in life. This philosophy matched my desire to self-actualize as Maslow discussed in his Hierarchy of Needs theory. Abraham Maslow had studied accomplished people in the 1960s when he was considering the need for a “height” psychology as opposed to depth psychology. He found that self-actualizing people were most themselves: self-aware, fulfilled, and whole human beings.

During yoga class on the lunch hour at work – the main reason I was able to get through my workday – I overheard a coworker talking about becoming a coach. I followed him out after class and asked him about coaching. He was taking courses through The Coaches Training Institute for his coach certification and had done his research to find on-site training courses. I immediately signed up.

Rob’s department faculty were encouraging him to pursue a PhD. I was emotionally fried, deplete of spirit, and concerned I was once again playing too small and dying on the inside. I felt my soul’s flame flickering. I had to get out before it was too late. I decided to leave another cushy corporate job behind. As I sat in my car looking back at the building and the people I left behind, I started to feel a sense of freedom. When I walked in the door of our beautiful dream home, the weight of the whole political situation at work lifted off my shoulders. I felt so light that I could fly. Now that Rob was well on his way, it was my turn.

Chapter 2:

How I Realized Success

“You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.”

– Abraham Maslow

Finding the Buried Treasure.

My dream business…

12/10/02 I have decided I want to be a life coach.

I am taking classes through CTI, the Coaches Training Institute.

Soon after leaving my last corporate job in 2002, almost twenty years after leaving my first corporate job, I announced to colleagues that I was starting my own coaching business. I received some congratulations and one person on my worldwide team asked me if I would coach her. My first paying client – yes!

1/6/03 Today is exciting because I am meeting with my first “real” client. She is a wonderful person and I am so honored she wants to work with me.

The day I signed a contract with my first client and received my first check was cause for celebration. My business had officially begun.

Client Story: As we began exploring Monica’s passion, she began acting on it and expressing it. She had been hiding the passion inside her and it seemingly had nothing to do with her current job. Yet, a few months later after unleashing her passion Monica began to shine more brilliantly and those around her took notice. She was offered a two-level promotion.

When you begin acting upon your passion, you light a fire within you and that fire feeds other aspects of your life. Others begin to notice something different about you, something brighter, more attractive. Stoking your soul’s fire absolutely has an impact on all areas of your life.

Our passions are our clues to our purpose in life. We must explore them if we want to answer the question, “Why am I here?” When we begin acting on our passion we begin to glow. People are attracted to our confidence, joy, and personal presence. We become magnetic. There is a law of attraction at work, personal magnetism is real.

Months later, as I was building my coaching practice, one of my clients shared interest in Naropa’s transpersonal psychology program. I felt as though the client was talking about my program! It was clear to me that I needed to apply for the transpersonal psychology program again. The envy I felt with my client’s interest was a sure sign. After applying the first time and getting a rejection letter, I had given up as if it was fate. With renewed interest, I learned that Naropa had begun an online program, which would work perfectly since we were planning on moving to Ohio for Rob’s PhD program.

I called the advisor of the transpersonal psychology program at Naropa and he started selling me on joining the program. What a switch from my first time applying! Naropa now wanted me in their program? I applied, this time including my volunteer work, and was accepted. Finally I was able to enter a master’s degree program that suited my interests perfectly. I fell in love with Naropa, meditation practice and classes, the faculty, the curriculum, the students, everything! That entire year of meditation training transformed my life. I had many “peak” experiences that are difficult to describe. Meditation practice has many benefits including unique experiences of interconnection.

We sold our dream house in Fort Collins, CO in a wonderful neighborhood. My best friend lived two houses down. Ty and Cole spent summer nights rounding up friends for “ghost in the graveyard” in our front yard until after dark. They loved both their school and their friends. It broke my heart pulling our sons out of such an amazing environment and saying goodbye to my best friend in tears as we drove away. We had to follow our hearts and continue to pursue the dream of finding meaningful work.

Rob had chosen a PhD program at our alma mater and I chose to obtain my master’s degree online at Naropa. We reduced our expenses by $4,500 a month by renting a 70-year-old home on College Avenue in Oxford, OH for $800 per month and placing our sons in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Stuck in a Cycle
• Chapter 2: How I Realized Success
• Chapter 3: The Master Key – Awareness Forms Foundation
• Chapter 4: Key 2 – Understand Needs
• Chapter 5: Key 3 – Trust through Caring
• Chapter 6: Key 4 – Honor Mission and Vision
• Chapter 7: Key 5 – Explore Stakeholder Feedback
• Chapter 8: Key 6 – Nurture Highest Self
• Chapter 9: Key 7 – Teach Gaps in Leadership
• Chapter 10: Key 8 – Investigate ROI for Sustainability
• Chapter 11: Key 9 – Cultivate New Business
• Chapter 12: Obstacles and How to Overcome Them
• Chapter 13: Conclusion – You’ve Got This!
• Further Reading
• Acknowledgments
• Thank You
• About the Author