Phil Dyer, CFP®, RLP®, CPCC
America’s Entrepreneur Strategist™
Phil Dyer
Based on my background, I am probably the last person you would think to find talking mindset, business-life balance and the importance of focusing on the “inner” bottom line as well as the “outer” bottom line. As a hard-charging West Point graduate and former Army officer with a successful career in corporate sales, I fully bought into the myth of rugged individualist entrepreneur who doesn’t need help from anyone and always pulls themselves up by their bootstraps.
I left corporate sales to become a fee-only planner in the mid-1990s and after working for several large wealth management firms, finally came to the realization that I was unemployable…so I struck out on my own in late 2002…right at the bottom of the tech stock bubble fiasco. I quickly learned that going it alone as a business owner – with no mentors, no coaches and no team – was a surefire recipe for frustration, burnout and disillusionment.
I also learned that even the healthiest bottom line is meaningless if you aren’t focusing on the truly important – family, friends, community and self. Much like Lisa, I set out to learn as much as I could about integrating money, meaning and fulfillment, studying at the Kinder Institute for Life Planning and also obtaining a professional life and business coaching certification. I invested significant time and resources engaging my own coaches and mentors to improve personally and professionally.
I quickly found that the resources I invested in myself and my business were returned two or three or five-fold in increased income, better systems to run my business, clients that were more fun to work with and more time to enjoy my family and focus on the life I truly want to lead. This success allowed me to take my family to Italy this last summer for 2 full weeks and completely unplug – no phone, computer, Blackberry, business books or business magazines and just enjoy – without having to worry about my business imploding while I was gone. The business didn’t even miss me!
My goal is to help as many entrepreneurs and business owners as I possibly can discover (or rediscover) their unique brilliance – those things that they LOVE to do and are great at – and focus on that divine spark while delegating, outsourcing or deleting everything else that robs them of their energy, distracts them from their goals and prevents them from building the business that truly supports their ideal life.
