Michelle Duval – Fingerprint For Success

Scar Tissue With Fabian Di Marco

Michelle helped found the field of professional coaching in Australia in 1997 and became a leading voice forging developmental and transformational coaching worldwide; working with leaders of billion dollar companies like Canva to Bathurst race car drivers, helping them discover their path forward. Now Michelle is the founder and CEO of Fingerprint For Success (F4S), a people analytics and coaching platform that assists startups, scale-ups and enterprise teams to map and develop innovative and entrepreneurial talent – based on 20 years of scientific study.

On this episode we discuss how Michelle has not only navigated her career as one of Australia’s pioneering and leading executive & entrepreneur coaches, but how she’s finding the transition away from running a service based company to a tech startup. We dive into themes that Michelle’s discovered about the worlds highest achievers, and dissect my results from the Fingerprint For Success report.

Key Takeaways

1. 1. Strengths and Blindspots: Strengths and blindspots only exist in context. My personal conviction and internal reference, for instance, works well in some business settings like the early stages of a startup, but, in a large corporate setting they could be an issue, causing conflict with other positions of authority and teams. We all have have strengths, we all have blindspots – and they’re often one and the same.
   2. The biggest difference between the highest achievers and everybody else, is an undistracted mind (focus). Over 20 years working as a coach, Michelle noticed significant and common differences between those who had billion dollar IPO’s, successful exits, top athletes and were elite’s in their respective fields, versus everyone else – and the biggest difference is the degree of undistracted focus to one audacious vision. The 1%, the highest achievers resolve their absolute focus and dedication to one thing. They’re not scattered, they’re not trying to juggle several major things at once – there is no distraction, but absolute focus on their one desired outcome. There can other components that are running within that one thing, but they all aim at the one direction, towards their vision.
   3. You must sacrifice balance, for success. Balance for breakthrough success, is a myth. Seeking to keep all of your cups half-full, only makes you realise how all of your cups are still half empty; each cup is a distraction and consumes energy to maintain. To achieve a giant leap in your field, a breakthrough success, you must be ‘all-in’, and shift the scales to one side. One can integrate different components of their life into their vision, and that may increase as their journey continues, but initially – there must be sacrifice, and absolute undistracted commitment. This dedication may not be sustainable for the long-term, but is required for at least the short-term.

Note: All three points are related. An undistracted mind must inherently sacrifice the things that could distract it from singular focus. Those who’re able to do this, with their eye on a grand vision, seem to be able to achieve breakthrough success. However, the rare ability to do this proves to be a blindspot in other contexts – it can effect relationships and health. Also, once the vision has been achieved, this ability may no longer be required ,but, is often still employed or focused on the wrong areas, sabotaging new beginnings and areas of life which now can be pursued.

“Hard work isn’t just all the hours you put in. It’s all the things you’ve got to say no to”.

Links

Fingerprint For Success – Try for free

Follow Michelle Duval on LinkedIn

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