An entrepreneur for over 35 years, Gary Mottershead is the founder and president of GCP Industrial Products, the largest U.S. importer of industrial sheet rubber, serving customers across North America. In this episode, he shares the highs and lows of his career, as well as his goals as a Program Coach for The Strategic Coach® Program.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• What Gary considers to be his most important responsibility.
• How Gary’s entrepreneurial career started with an actual tire fire.
• How he and his team built up their “crisis muscle.”
• Why reinterpreting your past and protecting your present is crucial to entrepreneurial success.
• How Strategic Coach® helps entrepreneurs sharpen their vision.
• Why Gary chose to write a book—and what he learned from the process.
• How entrepreneurs can overcome FOMO.

Show Notes:

If you’re going to bring children into the world, you should look after them.

Having a support system at home is vital to the success of any entrepreneurial family.

Stability in some areas of your life can give you the energy to handle changes in others.

Sometimes, not making a decision is the greater risk.

There are things entrepreneurs feel compelled to do without knowing why.

Trying to be significant before you’re successful is doing things backwards.

The time isn’t up unless you decide it’s up.

The mark of an entrepreneur is not how often you get knocked down, but how many times you get back up.

You’ll handle a situation more calmly if you’ve experienced something similar before.

Being nimble is a mindset.

Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.

You can rewrite your own story, keeping only what’s important.

The future isn’t written yet—which means you can still shape it.

Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle, not just a job.

Without intention and direction, too much information can paralyze you.

The hardest thing for an entrepreneur is being honest with themselves.

You can only help those who want to be helped.

Resources:

Kolbe A™ Index

Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nimble Future: Reinterpret Your Past, Protect Your Present, Engage In Your Future by Gary Mottershead

Unique Ability®

Time Management Strategies For Entrepreneurs (Effective Strategies Only)

The 4 Freedoms That Motivate Successful Entrepreneurs

The Self-Managing Company by Dan Sullivan

Many entrepreneurs use negatives to make a sale. But why sell fear when you can sell opportunity, and why sell pain when you can sell growth? Dan Sullivan reveals why positive messaging attracts the best clients, how ambition fueled by principles keeps you young, and why your community determines your growth. Learn why the most successful entrepreneurs never retire—they just keep reinventing themselves.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How selling is both an intellectual and emotional activity.
• Why fear isn’t something to avoid—but a sign you’re growing.
• The mindset shift that keeps successful entrepreneurs innovating.
• How Strategic Coach® accelerates growth for already successful entrepreneurs.
• The surprising link between ambition, aging, and fulfillment (and how to stay "young" at any stage).

Show Notes:

Most sales pitches use fear—but fear attracts the wrong clients and limits your growth.

Selling has two parts to it: intellectually connecting people to a desirable future result, and

then emotionally engaging them to take action to achieve that future result.

To be effective, a sales pitch has to be both convincing and compelling.

Instead of pitching that you can remove a negative, focus your pitch on amplifying something positive.

You're ambitious because of your passion. You'd like to see your passion have an impact out in the world.

Who you surround yourself with determines your trajectory: growth-oriented people keep you young, while stagnant people age you.

Status entrepreneurs, as opposed to growth entrepreneurs, eventually run out of ambition.

Ambition is driven by strategy. Growth is driven by principles.

Your principles are your way of being.

The moment you retire from fear, you also retire from excitement.

Fear and pain go together, as do opportunity and growth.

The biggest thing you're putting at risk when you're growing is your own past.

In the Strategic Coach community, you're not the exception—you're the norm.

Resources:

10xTalk Podcast with Dan Sullivan and Joe Polish

Anything And Everything Podcast with Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

The Mindset Scorecard by Dan Sullivan

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan

Growing Great Leadership by Dan Sullivan

What if the solutions you’ve already created could generate value for decades—without more of your time? In this episode, Dan Sullivan reveals how packaging, naming, and protecting your ideas transforms them into scalable intellectual property. Learn why your “second company” (your multiplier) could soon be worth more than your entire business—and how to make it happen.

Here’s some of what you’ll learn in this episode:

• How to make your solutions valuable by protecting them through intellectual property law.
• The thinking tool that lets you find the right person for the right role.
• How you can easily turn your ideas into intellectual property.
• The importance of sticking to your business model.
• How you can franchise your ideas.
• The future of Strategic Coach® over the next 20 years.

Show Notes:

Your first company, your R&D company, creates solutions for people.

Your second company, your multiplier company, packages your solutions as your intellectual property.

If you record, package, and name a solution you’ve created, it will have massive ongoing value.

Before you put your ideas out into the world, you must protect them.

Boredom with your own solutions is a hidden risk—document them before you move on to the next idea.

The value of Strategic Coach’s patents will soon surpass 55 years of coaching revenue—proof that IP compounds value.

Protecting your creativity isn’t just a multiplier; it’s an accelerator of long-term wealth.

A two-company structure makes you immune to market chaos because you control the value of your ideas.

Your biggest breakthroughs will come from technology multiplied by teamwork, not from grinding harder.

The same business model that built your success can scale infinitely—if you focus on IP, not just execution.

Resources:

Unique Process Advisors by Dan Sullivan

Instant IP

Casting Not Hiring by Dan Sullivan and Jeffrey Madoff

Unique Ability®

Perplexity

This Tool Will Help You Make Sense Of The Past AND Take Charge Of Your Future

Everything Is Created Backward by Dan Sullivan

Extraordinary Impact Filter by Dan Sullivan

Growing Great Leadership by Dan Sullivan

The 4 C’s Formula by Dan Sullivan