180 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
Odyssey Helped Me to See Myself through the Fog
Andrew Yoshioka, Sanbonki Inc., Ontario, Canada
During my last corporate job in 2009, I met Dr. Shayne Tracy. He had been
retained by my company to benchmark management and workforce. As part
of that process, he assessed me and the job I was doing. When we reviewed
what he had found, he pointed out an obvious conflict between who I was
and the work that I did. This wasn’t really news to me. I just assumed every-
one grumbled about their work and that I was no different. Thinking about
it later, however, it occurred to me that during my career, I had missed a
number of signals that should have lead me to realize that I should run my
own business.
When my company priorities changed, I left with a severance pack-
age and embarked on bucket list travels to see the world and to discover
the secrets of wealth and happiness. (Ha!) When I came home, I kept get-
ting referrals from people who needed help getting their businesses off the
ground. I had no idea about Ideal Clients at the time. I was just convinced I
could solve their challenges. However, these assignments usually collapsed
due to a lack of clarity around what success was, or what their expectations
were, or about how long these ventures would take to get to market. I real-
ized that there was something lacking in my consulting.
Around this time, Shayne suggested that if I was serious about consulting
as a business, I should really consider Odyssey. I enrolled in the program,
but frankly, I questioned my investment because though I was aware of the
content, I still had no idea about my purpose or my plan—pretty much right
up to travelling to the Odyssey MasterClass. The small group session, how-
ever, brought about a personal epiphany. I realized that I needed to aban-
don some of the things in my life that had been holding me back. This was
such a relief. I came home from the trip finally seeing my new self through
the fog on the road ahead. I knew I was heading in the right direction.
It has taken some time, and I have pivoted the business several times, but
repeat assignments are coming regularly now, from clients who trust and
value my solutions.
Further iteration of my value proposition took a while to develop. I
needed a statement that captured what I do and also validated the needs of
and opportunities faced by our clients. I eventually settled on this: “We posi-
tion businesses for investment, partnerships, and value growth.” It seemed
to cover the themes that arose consistently: The need for development