Cathy Dimarchos is an award-winning business advisor, mentoring and coaching leaders internationally, and is an indefatigable philanthropist who believes we can all contribute to lifting the baseline of people across the world one person at a time.
She founded Solutions2you with a purpose for impact so that she can serve others and leave a lasting imprint. As a professional advisor and motivational voice, Cathy dedicates her time to perfecting a combination of people, business, and situational skills. Her values take center stage and business becomes honest and expressive. She believes that knowledge exchange leads to self-reliance with effective and sustainable outcomes.
Her Advisory services extend to new and established Entrepreneurs, teams, and large corporates and supports people to become antifragile in a world that is forever changing, stretching their boundaries.
“When we rise, it is important to also lift those around us” — Cathy Dimarchos
Cathy Dimarchos, CEO of Solutions2you Pty Ltd
I advise businesses and leaders across the world and across industries and, no matter what I am engaged for, I always start with defining “Purpose” and “Values”. It is important to know your purpose just as much as that of your client or the people that you are engaging with.
I share my approach to enable you to form the framework that will deliver impact with success. I like to do things once and do them well and this is why I dig deep at the onset so I create a strategy and process that fulfills the needs of others.
Let me preface by saying that these tips are what works for me and for those that I have shared them with. My intent is to deliver valuable and relevant tools and skills so that you can embrace what works for you and achieve your desired outcome.
So, let’s start with how purpose justifies our meaning, and whilst I will look at this in the context of work it of course works in our personal life too.
What do you do?
I advise leaders and businesses across the world and across industries.
Why do you do what you do?
Because I love to share knowledge so others can learn and become self-reliant, effective, and self-sufficient.
In this example, my “Why” is the meaning behind why I do what I do – it fulfills my purpose. My purpose is to Advise leaders and businesses but if I did not take the time to truly reflect on the reason that sits behind what I do, I would merely turn up do my job – contribute, share knowledge and move on.
My purposeful action is to ensure that leaders and business owners can become self-reliant and self-sufficient through my sharing of knowledge. This adds another layer of complexity to what I do because I no longer simply pass on the information but invest in ensuring that they know why I make decisions and why I elected one path over another.
I introduce them to look beyond “first other thinking” so that they develop critical thinking – otherwise known as “second-order thinking”. By encouraging them to consider what the future steps may be and to ask themselves “what next?” and “what else might happen”.
In doing so, I also speed up the knowledge-sharing pathway. I also show them that I now have their best interest in mind and my focus is now on serving their purpose to develop and learn and become self-reliant and self-sufficient.
Integrating your values with your purpose crystallizes the meaning of why you do what you do and it enables you to outline what you do so you stay on course. It sets standards as well as instills principles and ethics that enable you to clearly define boundaries in pursuit of achieving your objectives.
It shifts your natural disposition from reacting to responding, especially in times of crisis or when under stress. This is a significant difference in behavior and pattern. When we have not prepared and invested the time to genuinely know exactly what our purpose is, we will react based on what the situation is and who is around us. Our decisions will be based on a clouded mind that is driven by an emotional situation.
Being intrinsically equipped in advance means that choices are made with clarity and a pre-determined well thought decision, one that has come from a position of strength with a growth mindset. Emotions such as fear hold no position when we need to make quick decisions under pressure, therefore anxiety and doubt lay dormant.
History enables us to learn from our experiences and if we are to evolve and strengthen from them, as opposed to coping with them, we must learn to be more than resilient. We need to embrace the opportunity to reflect, self-regulate and make a decision to do things differently. After all, we all want to learn from our experiences not just live through them.
Understanding our greater purpose and the reasons why we do what we do gives us the focus to keep surging forward despite challenging times. It gives us the ability to build solid foundations and avoid catastrophic situations. When we strategically plan ahead, it means that we build with the intention to create small steps for success. These measured steps enable us to trial and implement before we go too far and this also incorporates us to develop our second-order thinking further as we continuously ask “what else and “what if”.
We need to ensure that we have the capacity and willingness to strengthen from each experience; this brings me to antifragility. Nassim Taleb coined this term, and it is something that I continue to work on. This is not a new concept but is it something that we seldom practice because, as humans, we want to simply keep surging forward and to gravitate towards quick and easy solutions.
Nature displays antifragility in almost everything that is created. We see trees and forests regenerate and strengthen after bushfires; species have strengthened through evolution. Humans’ evolution has been to control things so, but to achieve the most effective outcomes for ourselves, we need to acknowledge that change and challenges are inevitable. If we can plan for the unpredictable and take the opportunity to learn from the past, ask questions rather than just accept a generated response, and react with what comes to mind as the short-term fix, we will be better equipped to respond to situational challenges and potentially avoid a larger challenge or perhaps even a catastrophe?
Look at what you can avoid rather than what you can control. Early on in this article, I referenced “first-order thinking”, focused on quick, short-term decisions. This does not leave room to consider what else may occur, on the contrary, it forces you to jump to a “quick fix” to resolve the immediate need without thinking about the long-term implications or outcomes.
“Simple systems are easily broken while complex systems often have built-in ways to absorb shocks. When complex systems are able to strengthen themselves in response to the damage, they’re antifragile.” —Nassim Taleb
Avoiding potential losses or damage at times requires a delayed response to consider the long-term requirements and implications and whilst the perception may be that you are slow or ill-equipped, it will enable you to gain a better insight and plan for the future minimizing risks.
The key is to create processes and steps where no one point failure can lead to a catastrophic outcome. Create options and potential solutions for any given situation and always consider “what else?” and then ask “what then?”.
With more than 20 years in leading teams, building and scaling businesses, and understanding people, there are some patterns and behaviors that I stick with as they have served me best.
If I can leave you with one overarching tip, it is to always plan ahead. Invest more time upfront to better understand what you want to achieve, how you will mitigate risk, and how you can strengthen from what you have learned to avoid having to go back and start again.
Your purpose and values define your journey and determine your success. Invest in yourself from the onset to succeed, lift others as you rise, and live a life that you deserve.
Want to learn more from Cathy? Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and visit her website.
