Spotlight: Velocity Coaching – Helping Hyper-Growth Founders Scale with Edward Sullivan

Edward Sullivan is CEO and Managing Partner of Velocity Coaching, an executive coaching firm that helps founders scale their businesses. In this episode, Edward and Daniel discuss the journey of leadership coaching and how to lead with heart.
Last updated
March 16, 2022
5
Min Read
Edward Sullivan has coached and advised start-up founders, Fortune 500 executives, and political leaders for over 20 years.
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“The reason compassion is so important is that we are all human beings—we are all emotional, alive human beings who need psychological safety. We need to feel belonging, we need to feel trust, we need to feel trusted. We need to believe that people think we're competent.” – Edward Sullivan

Velocity Coaching works with hyper-growth companies, helping founders who have found product-market fit scale their businesses 10-100x. Their clients include DoorDash, MasterClass, Airtable, Google, and Apple, and they’ve worked with some of the biggest names in tech, including Tony Hseih of Zappos. Edward Sullivan has coached and advised start-up founders, Fortune 500 executives, and political leaders for over 20 years. At Velocity Coaching, Edward Sullivan serves as the CEO and Managing Partner for a team of over 25 coaches located around the world.

For more, explore the transcript of this episode.


Topics discussed with Edward Sullivan

  • 00:02:37 – Background on Velocity Coaching
  • 00:06:17 – Velocity’s philosophy when working with clients
  • 00:19:04 – The current state of executive coaching, and how leadership coaching differs from life coaching
  • 00:25:02 – The coaching journey
  • 00:27:43 – Focusing on compassion
  • 00:30:59 – Constructive vs. deconstructive conflict
  • 00:39:12 – Common themes in coaching
  • 00:45:29 – Work self and home self are one
  • 00:51:31 – Leading with heart

Edward Sullivan Resources

Books Written by Edward Sullivan

Learn More About This Topic

Spotlight: Chris Sparks of The Forcing Function

Check out our interview with productivity coach Chris Sparks for another perspective on executive coaching.

Want to get great at something? Get a coach

This talk from Atul Gawande hammers home how important it is to get help from a coach when trying to improve ourselves and our work.

The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi
Edward recommends this book for anyone ready to move forward and get past the need to impress others.

Alan Watts Org
One of Edward’s favorite writers, Alan Watts was a writer and speaker whose works have been aggregated at this site. 

Velocity Blog

Check out Velocity’s own blog for articles on everything from self-care to running successful board meetings.

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