
Faith-leaping into a business, NPO, or the life of your dreams?


COACH’S BLOG
The Creative Conflict Academy. Eradicate toxic conflict. Grow creative, healthy, conflict. Build a healthy, productive, wealthy workplace.
Click for Enquiries & Enrolment: The Creative Conflict Academy - 6 weeks, one-to-one, POA 1. Leaders, Managers, Owners, in business, government, education, NPOs ... ... lend me your eyes and your ears. Greetings, I’m Werner Schmidt, leadership coach.I help...
[Coaching] The Journey Of An Entrepreneur: Masterclass Moments at 22 On Sloane
Experience 16 moments, from bite-sized to snack-sized, curated from my masterclass presented at 22 On Sloane, Africa's biggest startup campus. Click HERE for more information on my startup coaching services for groups, e.g. funded by corporate Enterprise Development,...
[Coaching] On Being Remotely Human #5: Conflict, Trampolines, Einstein & Negotiation?
Text and graphic design by Werner Schmidt | Photos by Flavius Les on Unsplash, Hannes Richter on Unsplash and https://eportfolios.capilanou.ca/ | Soundtrack, Autumn Leaves (arr.) by John Smit from SoundSphere Productions In this article, Turn your boardroom and...

When you live from your calling, your purpose, your core, life becomes a meaningful adventure with the world as our dance floor.
To grow is to live. We grow in gratitude as we accept our lives and commit to relationships, work, play, learn, rest and all life has to offer. Our ability to generate joy wherever we are, is greatly enhanced by our willingness to anchor our roots in appreciation.
As a startup or existing organisation – growing a sustainable venture, whether business, non-profit, or creative project – you require constant discovery and development of your character and competence to embrace the ever-increasing responsibilities entrusted to you.

Personal Business Coaching
I coach individual entrepreneurs – business, NPO or creative project – or groups of startups. Groups often spring from Enterprise Development, Supplier Development and Socio-Economic Development projects, funded by corporates, or SETA-funded interventions e.g. for adults with physical disabilities, unemployed youth, startups in ICT, agriculture, hospitality, tourism, and so forth.
Commitment
One-to-one engagements: Terms, including investment, timeframe, agreed upon before our conversation journey starts.
Groups: 12 to 24 weeks* of your time for the New Venture Creation Programme, journey from your self as a person, to your idea, to a summarised venture plan and pitch. Or, if you’d like to take up the full challenge, commit 12 to 24 weeks of your time from idea to venture plan, pitch and first transactions!
* The New Venture Creation Programme is particularly flexible, it has been presented in crash course format over four (4) days, up to 7 months online, with a number of iterations in-between.
Start or Start Afresh
Perhaps you wish to start a new venture – business or non-profit (social entrepreneurship). How about a creative project? Perhaps you would like to take an existing venture back to the drawing board, or grow it to your well-defined ‘next level,’ by inspiring growth in your people and processes.
One-to-one engagements’ roadmaps are tailor-made, through co-creative conversation.
Groups: If you value learning from taking consistent action, the New Venture Creation Programme may be a good fit for you, with me and the UFS Business School.

Selling The Truth: BrandStorming, including your Brand Story Framework
In short, this describes the co-creation of a brand story framework which is aligned to the values and venture model of your venture. The one and only birthplace of you, selling the truth.
Your brand story framework may be applied to any communication channel, including your corporate profile, website, social media profiles, and, most importantly, your personal representation of your venture to prospects, referral partners, investors, financiers, and so on. After all, what you say about your venture, and the way in which you talk – including body language and tone of voice – is truly what sells.

Strategic Planning Preparation
Whether planning at the executive level, department or project level, strategic planners often act as conductors of an orchestra (organisation) for an audience (customers/clients (business) or beneficiaries & donors (NPO), etcetera). Usually, only a few individuals around the annual strategic planning fireside are ‘fit’ for strategic conversation – i.e. those who regularly operate and think strategically throughout the year – which leads to lack of engagement, strategic monologuing, strat planning rubber-stamping, and so forth.
“When is lunch/dinner/sundowners, already!”
Werner’s recommended solution:
Using my tried-and-trusted 12-step process, library of tools and programs, in concert with innovation and resilience prompts, I activate each individual’s capacity for strategic versus operational process, in light of their current roles. This is followed by a round of feedback, conversation and reflection.
Secondly, the individual strategic conversationalists are brought to the main strategic planning conversation (“fireside” or table), where the conversation is guided into the organisation’s main strategic planning process. The individuals enter this circle, prepared for their role-based domain, confident to contribute to the bigger picture of the organisation.
Thirdly, after feedback, conversation and reflection, I leave said strategic planning table, trusting that every individual will contribute their best to the greater good of the organisation’s impact in the world.
And yes, I will most certainly return for the dinner, if red wine is on offer.