Our Philosophy

Dear Student,

Welcome to the Business Catalyst Institute™! We know that students come with different sets of skills and at varying places in regards to building a thriving, fulfilling business. No matter where you are in your business development or training, one size does not fit all. Therefore, we've created our program to work with your individual needs and styles in moving forward.

What we've learned from working with entrepreneurs over the years is that building your business brings with it a huge range of emotions - excitement, fear, joy, as well as disappointment and frustration. We recognize the courage it takes to be an entrepreneur and to build your business. We don't take that lightly and we're completely committed to supporting you in creating a thriving business.

This document will provide you with an introduction to the Business Catalyst Institute™. Sections include:

• The Starting Point
• Your Journey With Us
• What You Can Expect Along the Way
• What We Expect of You
• The Three Themes of the Business Catalyst Institute
  • Empowered awareness
  • Personalized approach
  • Support and championing
  • The Interaction between the three themes

We thank you for joining us on this amazing journey, and we look forward to working and learning side-by-side with you!

The Starting Point

Now close your eyes and imagine a beautiful villa, built to include all the features that you would want - a lush garden, a terrace with a panoramic view, a spacious kitchen, a sumptuous master suite, whatever makes your heart sing. This is a villa built especially for you, to your specifications. Wander around the villa, get a clear sense of how it would look, what it would include, how you would feel while living there. Walk around the grounds, look at the gardens, enjoy the view. This is YOUR villa, YOUR creation!

We’re using the metaphor of a villa to represent your business. No two villas are alike, just as no two businesses are alike. In order to build your villa, you first need a vision - an idea or plan of what you want the villa to look and feel like. In our metaphor, this is represented by a blueprint of the villa, which includes the plans and dreams and visions you have for your business. You will also need tools and information that will help and guide you in the building efforts.

All of these elements are addressed within the Business Catalyst Institute. Your villa will evolve and grow over time, and the role of our program is to provide you with the blueprint, tools, and information to help you through this ongoing process.

Your Journey With Us

We’ve created a smorgasbord of courses for you with a wide range of topics, course lengths and prices. You can read more about the classes by selecting the Courses link in the navigation menu.

You can take the courses in the sequence and timing that best suits you. There are no required prerequisites, though there are some recommended prerequisites.

What You Can Expect Along the Way

This is a foundational program that is intended to give you a solid grounding in the fundamentals needed to succeed as an entrepreneur.

The Business Catalyst Institute is founded on an inside-out and an outside-in approach. We believe that success starts with an empowered and aware perspective, and is further facilitated by incorporating the "feedback" you receive from the world as you proceed in your business building endeavors. You can bring this feedback to your fellow class participants and get support in growing and becoming more successful in your implementation.

These classes are not designed to be a "quick fix" or a "silver bullet." Our desire is to help you build and sustain a strong business for the long term. To accomplish this, you will be asked to look deeply at yourself and the beliefs, ideas, and assumptions you hold about growing your business and about the various topics covered in each class. We are often our biggest obstacle to success!

In many classes you will be given fieldwork to put your learning into action. You may find some of the fieldwork challenging, but the experience that you gain will provide you with invaluable learning. Your fellow participants and class leader will be available to support you when you feel discouraged and to celebrate with you when you are successful.

In some classes, you will be asked to provide mutual support and coaching to one or more of your fellow participants between class sessions. This will not only expand your community of colleagues and supporters, it will also increase your learning and motivation.

What We Expect of You

Since this is a foundational program, we have few expectations regarding your knowledge of, or expertise in, the topics covered by the courses. So please approach each class with an open, beginners mind - you might be surprised by what you learn!

However, we do have expectations regarding how you will "be" in the classes and how you will engage with fellow students, including:

• That you are ready, in terms of both motivation and available time and energy, to get into action to build your business and work toward your business goals and vision.
• That you are willing to examine and challenge your beliefs, Gremlins, perspectives and assumptions that might sabotage your implementation efforts.
• That you are willing to actively support and work with your fellow class participants on their own implementation journey.

If you find that you are unable, or unwilling, to meet these expectations, please feel free to contact us to discuss your situation. Our contact information can be found on the "Contact Us" page from the main menu.

The Three Themes of the Business Catalyst Institute

There are three consistent themes, or elements, that are interwoven throughout the Business Catalyst Institute classes. We feel that these elements are fundamental to the success of your business.

We’d like to introduce you to the themes to provide some context for our classeses. Below you'll find a graphical depiction, followed by a brief description of each theme.

Empowered Awareness

Empowered Awareness means that you are full of curiosity about yourself, learning about what inspires you and what shuts you down, managing the critical or judgmental internal voices. The more self aware you are, the greater your ability to respond with what will best serve you and your business. This allows you to create structures and support that will help you stay inspired and in action, working toward your goals.

In addition, it is vital that we empower ourselves and take responsibility for responding appropriately. For example, if you are aware that you're feeling tired or sad or discouraged, and then judge yourself for that, it will obviously not be useful - in fact the awareness then becomes a liability. However, if you notice those feelings or states and you respond with caring and attention to your needs, it will be a great asset.

Being aware, and responding in a non-judgmental fashion, does not mean that you are colluding with your Gremlins, which may be trying to slow your progress. Instead, you are taking care of your needs and moving your business plan forward in a way that works with your own unique preferences and strengths. Clearly, it will be important to discern which voice - your authentic self or your Gremlin - is speaking to you.

There are three primary areas of self -awareness to pay attention to on an ongoing basis:

• Your current emotional and/or physical states
• Your assumptions, beliefs, perspectives, and inner conversations including both the empowering and the dis-empowering varieties
• Your connection to, and level of motivation from, your business vision, passion, purpose and associated commitments

Personalized Approach

As stated before, no two businesses are alike. Contrary to the popular myth, there is no one "right" way to build a business, though some ways are more effective than others. Each entrepreneur blazes his or her own trail, leveraging from lessons learned through self-awareness as well as the wisdom and help of others along the way. You'll find that some trails might become dead ends, and this is a necessary part of the learning and evolution process.

To help you blaze your trail, knowledge about yourself - your unique styles, habits, and preferences - is very useful. This knowledge allows you to design a personalized approach to the implementation phase, how to take action in a way that "fits" with who you are and how you work best. This type of knowledge may include:

• Your strengths, styles, and preferences. Are you more right brained or left brained? work slow and steady or faster in spurts? introverted or extroverted? artistic or analytical? Any self-discovery work you've done that has given you insight into how you best relate to the world will be of use in the classes. You may have stories in your head that you are "no good" in a certain area, and you will be asked to examine those assumptions to determine if they are true, or if they are Gremlin-chatter.
• Structures that empower and support you. There are many ways to stay inspired and engaged so it is important to find the structures and support systems that work best for you.
• Typical roadblocks that stop you or slow you down. Everyone has situations or hurdles that slow them down. Being aware of where and when you often get stuck allows you to change that pattern and create new habits or structures to bypass or overcome those roadblocks.

Support and Championing

The “lone ranger” approach is neither effective nor efficient as a sustainable, ongoing style. It is crucial to your success to develop a strong community that provides mutual support and championing. There are two main reasons why this is so important. One, because without the input and feedback from your support community, the primary source of information about your progress will be your own Gremlins, and we already know how that will go. Second, because your community can provide you with a wealth of ideas, information, and encouragement so that you are never truly alone in your courageous journey.

There are many ways to get support and championing and you will be asked to define what will work best for you and to take steps to create that community. We encourage you to get past the cultural message that says “you should do it yourself” and implies that you are a better person if you do so. We have found that being a "lone ranger" usually leads to feelings of isolation, unhappiness, and burnout.

As you begin to envision your own support community, here are a few questions to consider:

• What works best for you in terms of support and/or accountability, and what does NOT work?
• What are times that you were really well supported? What was it about that support that made it so effective?
• What gets in the way of your reaching out to others?

The Interaction Between the Three Themes

As you can see in the graphical depiction, there are arrows that connect the three themes. Each element interacts and supports the other two. For example, as you become more aware, you are better able to personalize your implementation approach, which allows you to further define what you need in terms of support and championing. So these three themes, or elements, work hand-in-hand and build on each other.

You are the center of this interaction. As you develop each of these elements within your own life, you will become a more successful entrepreneur and a more fully alive human being.

Each of these themes acts as a foundation for the Business Catalyst Institute classes. Combined with your blueprint, tools, and information, you will be well on the road to a sustainable, successful business!