Hello Everyone -
Happy (early) Thanksgiving! I hope your holiday is filled with gratitude, turkey and well-deserved rest — wherever and with whomever you share it with.
I thought it’d be apropos to share a conversation with a friend and former colleague who has made his life after selling his business, iStrategy Labs (iSL), to all about ‘being of service’ to those around him.
Peter Corbett founded, led and built iStrategyLabs, at the time, a Washington DC-based digital agency, and sold it to JWT, part of the WPP agency network in 2016. Shortly after the acquisition closed, Peter retired from iSL.
For the next two years plus — Peter explored. He intensively meditated, took cold immersion and breathing courses in Poland and Iceland, joined a two week survival course in the desert, and did a 9 month training program in hospice and worked with over a hundred sick & dying people at the Brooklyn Hospital Center.
His objective was to reduce himself to a blank canvas. What’s next? What is important? What should I pursue now that I’m set financially for this life and many more (Peter’s words)?
Throughout his self-exploration Peter came back to this concept of being of service to others. How can he combine his experience of running a successful agency, scaling and then selling it with being of service to others?
Coaching
CEOs and Founders are now coming to Peter asking him for counsel on how to handle certain questions, challenges and/or scenarios affecting them individually and their businesses?
‘..it turns out CEOs have so much leverage and they can do so much damage if they're not operating consciously.’
Peter is selective with the clients he decides to coach. Unlike technology, it’s difficult scaling one human being. By being purposeful in whom he selects, Peter is able to invest his undivided attention.
What does success look like for any one of Peter’s coaching clients? They don’t need him anymore.
Peter flexed his being of service bona fides way before his, now, coaching business. While leading iStrategyLabs he also founded the DC Tech Meetup which at one point boasted over 25,000 members. Peter attributes his skill to organize and led industry get togethers to being a natural connector.
"You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backward.” — Steve Jobs
In addition to the awards and industry Peter and the iSL team accumulated over time, he was tapped by the US State Department to be one of their invited speakers to travel around the world to present American technological ingenuity and entrepreneurialism.
COMRAD is a Top Compression Sock for Travel according to US News and World Report.
Ep. 14: Peter Corbett, CEO & Founder, Still Rush