Shannon Waller’s biggest goal as a coach is to help people make dramatic jumps in their confidence, capability, and productivity—and do it quickly. Her approach is to look for what’s really going on, and then find the simplest, most effective ways to make things the best they can be. Equally important is to do this compassionately, so each individual fully enjoys the progress they’re making and the results they’ve created.

Shannon’s relationship with Strategic Coach® goes back to 1991, when she’d been working long, high-pressure days and attended a talk given by Dan Sullivan. “He was talking about how the world was changing and how to cope with it. I was fascinated,” she says. Afterwards, she talked to Dan and his wife and business partner, Babs Smith. They offered Shannon the chance to sell the workshop program they’d created, and, looking for a bigger challenge, she leapt at the opportunity.

As the company grew, she grew with it, finding that her goals were consistently aligned with those of Strategic Coach. Dan and Babs were enthusiastically supportive when she decided to go back to school part-time to study training and development. In fact, when she showed one of her projects to Babs—a design for a team workshop to run alongside Strategic Coach’s workshops for entrepreneurs—Babs surprised her by saying, “Let’s do it!”

Today, Shannon coaches a greatly evolved version of that program, and continues to design it, along with designing webinars, speeches, tools, and sessions of the Strategic Coach® Program. She’s continually inventing new products and services to help entrepreneurs implement the Program’s concepts in their day-to-day business.

Over the years, it has become clear that she has as much talent for delivering these materials as for designing them, and she regularly coaches webinars, presentations, and on-site sessions with entrepreneurs and their team members, garnering rave reviews. “In one day we can accomplish what would otherwise take up to a year. It’s an accelerated thinking and decision-making process that really launches them forward.”

One of the rewards of coaching that Shannon especially appreciates is seeing people who are energetic and engaged become even more capable. “When they get this,” she says, “they can better solve their own problems, they can communicate more effectively, they can work more easily with other people, they can create bigger and better results, and they’re happier.”

She sees the business world as the perfect environment for personal development and growth. “It keeps you real,” she says. “If other people don’t find what you’re doing valuable, they’re not going to pay you for it. And there’s a lot of room for growth. When I’m coaching and somebody is able to get un-stuck from an unproductive attitude or way of being and operate from a new perspective, it completely jazzes me. I love it when they become bigger, better versions of themselves.”

In addition to her infectious enthusiasm about her work, Shannon is also very focused on her family. She, her husband, and their two daughters take every opportunity they can to get away together to their cottage north of Toronto. She admits she’s not much of a homebody—“My only domestic talent is baking,” she says with a laugh—and would much rather spend her free time devouring books and seeking out new experiences and perspectives. “I love to learn,” she says. “I love new ideas.”

Download a PDF version of Shannon Waller’s bio.