A Note from Jake Puhl, CEO of The DEO
February 1, 2019 — As many of you may know, Dr. Marc Cooper and I have been business partners the past two years with The DEO. Marc and I met while he was running the Mastery Company, and together we nurtured and built what is The Dentist Entrepreneur Organization — “The DEO” as it is now known today.
CEO Jake Puhl
A few months ago, Marc and I went through a negotiation process and I have now fully acquired the business. I look forward to moving forward the legacy of Dr. Cooper while infusing the vision I carry for The DEO into its next evolution.
The relationships among myself, The DEO, and Marc remain strong. Marc will still appear as a guest writer for the DEO Blog. In fact, we’ve set a date for coffee in a few weeks, and I look forward to hearing classic Marc insights that will undoubtedly challenge the way I think about my current issues, and push me forward through ongoing growth. This is what Marc has always done and always will do. He continues to make the world a better place because of his efforts.
I know many of you are wondering what Marc is up to these days, so we asked Marc to pen a blog to you all with an update.
Enjoy “Dr. Cooper’s Next Journey!”
Cheers!
— Jake
Dr. Cooper’s Next Journey
“And suddenly you know. It’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” — Meister Eckhart
Dr. Marc B. Cooper
The Backstory
In 35 years of coaching and consulting, I have worked with CEOs and senior executives of Fortune 500s, hospitals and hospital systems, biotechnical companies, IT companies, business incubators, clearinghouses, and insurance companies. (See the complete client list on my new website: www.drmarcbcooper.com).
For the last 10 years, my primary focus has been dentist-entrepreneurs, their related senior executives and equity partners, and the development of their managed-group practices. My path has been undeniably transformational. What has made the difference, both inside and outside of dentistry, has been the many people I have had the opportunity to encounter — clients, co-workers, partners, colleagues, peers, counselors, and teachers. To a large extent, who I am as a person is a result of those relationships.
On August 1, 2018, I sold the remaining shares of The Dentist Entrepreneur Organization, (The DEO, formerly the Mastery Company,) to my partner, Jake Puhl. It was the right time and the right person. Jake had a powerful vision for the future of The DEO: a future that would allow The DEO to make a much larger contribution to its mission of enabling small and mid-sized managed-group practices to succeed, and at the same time build a powerful community that empowered its members.
Jake clearly could provide what was needed to grow The DEO into a dynamic force in the future of the dental industry. My job in this endeavor felt complete. A legacy was now written. The baton was passed. The work of “could be” was now “shall be.” Jake could take it to the next level and make it his own.
A New Path
The direction The DEO needed to take was not the direction that called to me — but it was undeniably the right direction. Where my strengths resided, where my passion lived, where I was the most powerful and the most masterful, where I made the biggest impact, was in two places: designing and delivering transformational programs and ontological coaching.
Besides the many hours of training and education in business development, leadership development, and business-culture development, there was also my ongoing education and training in transformation and self-development. My engagements with est (Erhard Seminars Training), Landmark Corporation, Wings Seminars, Pathworks, and Zen Studies at Naropa Universit; my work with the likes of Erhard, Schacter, Goleman, Frisk. Palmer, Brown, Wheatley, Bowen, and Whyte, were key to my life and foundational for the contribution I could make.
As the transaction with Jake came to a close, it became obvious what path I should follow. I knew it was the right path when I remembered a Henry David Thoreau quote; “Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
In my worldview and my years of experience, “being” is far more powerful than “doing” or “having”and that’s what ontological coaching is all about — to enable executives to break free of whatever self-imposed and self-limiting restraints that bind them. Even with the complexities of rapid change, the work of my coaching would stay the same: keep clients at the center, push them to use their strengths more, to temper their weaknesses, and illuminate their blind spots because that’s what gets in their way. My coaching focus is now with more-conscious and self-aware senior executives — primarily in the healthcare sector — CEOs and C-Suite executives who have a background of success as well as overcoming personal and professional failures: executives who have realized that what counts is who they are, not just what they know or what they do, that makes the difference.
Purpose of Life Is a Life of Purpose
People continuously ask me “why keep working?”
“You’ve got enough money, you’ve worked hard your whole life, you’ve changed lives, you’ve transformed an entire industry. Why?”
For me the purpose of life is a life of purpose. The skill and wisdom I have gained to become a master coach “calls me to be,” providing me with new openings for action and a new vision.
As George Bernard Shaw once said; “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
Flame on,
— Marc
Dr. Marc B. Cooper is Chair of Insight Coaching and Consulting. Click here to find out more about Dr. Cooper and click here to connect on Facebook.
