Interview with Paul Gruber, Achievement Coach to the Stars

It is my honour to present the latest interview in my series of chats with business visionaries and experts. Today I am joined with my business coach, Paul Gruber, who is an achievement coach with RRi, one of the fastest growing achievement coaching firms in the world. Paul is dedicated to personal growth, and to helping others achieve their dreams. How did I get started in business?

Believe it or not, that is a challenging question. I’m not your typical business person; I consider myself to be a perpetual entrepreneur. What got me started in business though, was a book that I read over twenty years ago, “In Search of Excellence”, by Tom Peters.

What do you see as the future trends in the business world?

Imagination and creativity will rule in the future. If you think about it, all left brain processes will be digitized and will be easily exported to the lowest bidder, where ever that might be. It’s the imagination that can not be digitized. It’s imagination that will take all the information and create something out of it. Imagination is the thought process that is most adoptable to changes.

What do you do to improve yourself?
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, he writes about three types of people; the Connector, the Salesperson, and the Maven.

I’m the Maven; I’m constantly scourging the internet, magazines, and books looking to find new thoughts to expand my mind. I read 4 to 5 books a month; I look at 100’s of websites on a regular basis. I’m also very active in various networking functions. This puts me around people that motivate me.

Does personal growth really lead to growth in business?

There are three levels of knowledge in life. That which we know; that which we know that we don’t know, and that which we don’t know that we don’t know. This can be compared to your growth in business. As you grow your business there will be your three levels of business knowledge. That which we know; that which we don’t know, and that which we don’t know what we don’t know.

Personal growth will expand your mind in all these areas.

How is technology changing the way we do business? How is it changing personal growth?

This is one of my favorite topics:

1. Thomas Freidman stated in his book, “The World is Flat”, that there is going to be more and more business shifts. That business will relocate to other parts of the world.
2. Tom Peters quoted in his book, “Re-imagine”, that you can’t compete against China in manufacturing, and your ca not compete against Wal-Mart in pricing.
3. Daniel Pink wrote in his new book, “A Whole New Mind” that if the action is routine, that technology will recreate it. Think of it this way, if what you do is repeated, it can be reproduced through technology, and hence human interaction will be eliminated. Just think of the opportunities?

Technology is changing personal growth in many different ways, i.e. Blogs, Vlogs (video blogs), see www.youtube.com, Pod casting, video streaming, etc. Information will become more accessibly and segmented. Think of it this way: It wasn’t that long ago, if we wanted to see a motivational speaker, it would cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, not to mention the time spent traveling to the show. Now, just today, I listened to Daniel Pink on the internet, as I watched his Power Point, it was awesome.

Let me put this in perspective; I can go to Google and search just the topics I need to watch, or read, and store it for later.

What is the quickest way to “make it” in business?

There is no magic pill, no quickest way to make it in business.

There is a right way though, that will help you avoid the pit falls, and speed up the process. First develop a good business plan, a clear and precise plan. Set goals, than take massive and consistent action to achieve your goals. Finally hire a business coach, to hold you accountable to your plan.

Do you Blog?

I started blogging around a year ago, when I first discovered what blogging was. I spent hours studying the blogging phenomenon, reading and looking at thousands of them from all over the world. I spent more hours commenting on them than actually writing myself. This question has made me rethink of writing again though.

What one piece of advice would you leave with our readers?

I would encourage all readers to take time for these four things:

1) Learn to manage time. We all have the same amount of time, the difference between the successful people and the no-successful, is what they do with the time they have. Remember this about time, once it’s spent, unlike money, we can never make anymore.

2) Find your Enduring Purpose, or Personal Mission. Answer the question, “why am I here?” This will serve as your internal compass, directing you through the hard times.

3) Build a dream list. Take a pad of paper and write no less than 50 dreams. Write the things you would love to do if time, money, and failures not part of the equation. This will expand and strengthen your imagination, along with programming your subconscious.

4) Finally take time out every day to review and reflect on your life. The majority of people just live their life with out taking time to improve or correct problems that keep reoccurring. This needs to be practiced early in the morning, before you get the day started. It should be a half hour of no distraction. You should also keep a journal of your thoughts for periodical reviewing. This is what we call working ON your life and not IN your life.

Paul Gruber is a Florida based achievement coach whose enduring purpose is: “To help people grow, by carefully hearing them, before being heard. Help others to dream, by teaching that the only difference between dreams and knowledge, is knowledge has limitation. Give to those who want to receive, using the principal that the teacher will appear when the student is ready, and continually be searching for the student.” To get in touch with Paul, call (941) 234-3553, or send an email to paulgruber@hotmail.com.