Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Guglielmo.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Daniel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I got here by following my life, to use my Ann’s words. There is a lot of truth to this. A passion for a full and meaningful life has been a seed in me as long as I can remember; and, it has been connected from the very beginning to a special demographic – founder/owners of privately held business, entrepreneurs like my father and grandfather.
Early on, I did not connect the passion with leadership, though it really was, but without my recognition until fairly recently. I have started several businesses, and they all had to do with serving the small business owner. In my quest to continually become better at this, I went through a series of iterations, from tax lawyer to wealth planner to founder of the Exit Planning Exchange out of Babson College, which was created to unlock the collaborative potential of the business advisors that serve my demographic.
In this effort, I discovered executive coaching, which precipitated a major shift in my life. Coach training changed how I saw others and how I showed up with others. The change was significant, and made me far more effective and useful to the people I served. It is important to add that while this shift was happening, I was going through significant turmoil in my family and business. We were dealing with the emergence of serious mental illness with our oldest daughter. The timing, as I see it now, is serendipity, and a lesson in leadership. The pain opened me up to new ways of seeing myself and how I moved through the world. The timing also coincided with the crashing markets of 2008, which profoundly impacted my business and my home life.
My search to cope found me with a pen and paper, writing a primer on succession planning, How Wolves Change Rivers. The effort was both cathartic and therapeutic. This is where my vision to partners with leaders of business organizations for the purpose of building generative cultures emerged, and it lead me directly to developing my CEO peer group practice, which in turn significantly stimulated by executive coaching practice. I have never looked back.
Working with talented business leaders is surfing the big wave of life for me. I call it dangerous fun. It is both significant work impacting 1000s of lives, and it is exciting! Leadership work is an honor and a privilege, and this never escapes me. To be truly effective in this work, one must do their own work first. Pursuing coaching and leadership skills helped me become alive in my own life. The work accelerated me down the face of my life purpose, which is to accelerate other eager participants in this journey we share by supporting them in their engagement and desire to meet their own inherent purpose, thus fulfilling my own purpose. As you can see, this is a generative cycle and life enhancing for all those interested in signing up.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Surf School for CEOs – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
My work is life giving, for me and my clients. If it is not, I have not done my job. Leaders hire me because they want more. They long to be more effective, which, for me, must have meaning far beyond the narrow and thus shallow goal of making more money. Although the direct impact begins with the CEO, it never stays there. By its very nature, the work moves on, to the people the CEO touches. After all, to become a more effective leader means becoming more effective leading the people who are in the tribe that you intend to lead. There is an ever-increasing number of people doing the type of work I do, and thank God for that! Otto Scharmer describes current times and big business as “organized irresponsibility.” In the face of this, there is significant evidence of an emerging, massive and collective response, which is seeking and even demanding health and sustainability in our organizations. Encouragingly, this sentiment is also widely evident in our younger generations. Moreover, this movement is buttressed by neuroscience, and now supported by the leading academic institutions in the world. Developing the whole person is the most effective means of improving performance, and the exciting news is that this type of improved performance transcends boundaries and infects your entire life.
Contact Info:
- Address: 100 Pier 4
Boston, MA 02210 - Phone: 774-218-5514
- Email: dan@trustdesign.com
- Twitter: twitter.com/CEOSurfSchool
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